Abdolreza Sheikhan added that more than 28 tons of clinker were produced over the same period to register a 7.5% rise year-on-year,” Mizan Online reported.
Close to 5.48 tons of cement and clinker were exported during the five-month period, indicating a 10% decrease YOY.
“Rise in transportation as well as insurance fees increased export expenses which, in turn, had a negative impact on our export volume during the five months,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.
Sheikhan noted that 26% of Iran’s cement exports during the period under review went to Afghanistan, 15% to Uzbekistan, 6% to Pakistan, 5% to Kazakhstan and 5% to Russia.
Iraq, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, India, the UAE, Kenya, China and Oman were the main export destinations for Iranian clinker.
According to Jafar Sarqeini, deputy industries minister, Iran aims to increase its cement production capacity to 100 million tons by 2021 and further increase it to 120 million tons by the end of the 20-year Vision Plan (2025).
Iran held on to its ranking as the world’s 10th biggest cement producer in 2018, although production decreased by 1.85% compared with 2017 to stand at 53 million tons, a report published by the United States Geological Survey said.
Based on the USGS report published in February, the world’s top cement producers over last year were China (2.37 billion tons), India (290m tons), the US (88.5m tons), Turkey (84m tons), Vietnam (80m tons), Indonesia (67m tons), South Korea (56m tons), Japan (55.5m tons), Russia and Egypt (each with 55m tons), Iran (53m tons), Brazil (52m tons) and Saudi Arabia (45m tons).
Other countries produced an aggregate of 756 million tons of cement in 2018.
Total global cement production in 2018 hit 4.1 billion tons, showing a 1.23% growth compared with the year before.
“Our production capacity stands at 87.5 million tons per year,” IRNA quoted Sheikhan as saying.
According to the official, Iran is the world’s sixth biggest exporter of cement chain products.
According to the USGS report, Iran’s clinker production capacity last year stood at 80 million tons, the same as in 2017. This constituted the sixth largest clinker production capacity in the world, placing Iran in the same spot as Russia.
China, India, the US, Vietnam and Turkey were the top five countries having the highest clinker production capacity in a descending order over 2018.