Page 54 - IRANRptAug20

Second biggest producer was Hormozal Aluminum Company with 46,694 tonnes, a figure that represented a 40% y/y drop. Next were Almahdi Aluminum Company with 42,059 tonnes (20% y.y) and Iran Alumina Company with 9,615 tonnes (no annual comparison was provided).
Iran produced 18.5mn tonnes of steel ingot in the first 11 months of the 2019/2020 Persian year (year ends on March 19), marking growth of 4% y/y, Mehr news agency reported on March 14.
Bonab Steel Production Company reportedly registered 865% growth in producing billet ingot in the period while Esfahan’s Mobarakeh Steel Company and Hormozgan and Saba steel companies produced 8,389,280 tonnes of steel, approximately the same amount as was recorded in the first 11 months of the 2018/2019 Persian year.
Iran’s total steel production volume, including rebar, beam, hot and wide steel sheets, galvanized sheet and pipe hit 12,308,475 tonnes, up 7% y/y.
Iran is working to a strategy running to 2025 under which its steel production capacity would rise to 55mn tonnes. It stood at 35mn tonnes by March 20, 2019.
9.1.11 ​Defence sector news
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles from underground silos for the first time as part of an annual military drill, Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the aerospace division of the Guards, said on July 29 in a video posted online by YJC, a news agency linked to Iran’s state TV.
The video showed clouds of dust before the missiles streaked into the sky—the missiles break through ground soil during launch.
The US military said the drill’s ballistic missile launches caused two bases with American troops in the region to go on heightened alert.
The video posted by YJC included footage of fast-attack boats firing missiles as well as missiles striking a mock-up US aircraft carrier as Iran sought to make a bigger than usual show of strength amid high tension between Tehran and the US Trump administration.
Tehran, which opposes the presence of US and other Western navies in the Persian Gulf, holds annual naval war games in phases in the strategic Hormuz Strait waterway. It is the conduit for some 30% of all crude and other oil liquids traded by sea, Reuters said.
Satellite images taken by Iran’s Noor (“Light”) satellite, placed in orbit in April, were used to evaluate outcomes in the war game zone, according to Iranian military officials.
Russia has sold Iran six ekranoplan ground-effect vehicles (GEVs), RIA Novosti has reported.
Dubbed the “Caspian Sea Monster” by the CIA, the ekranoplan is often mistaken for an airplane, seaplane, hovercraft or hydrofoil—but the GEV, which flies using the lift generated by its large wings when within about four metres above the surface of the water, is recognised as a distinct technology, originally trialled in the 1970s by the Soviets. The technology has been given a new lease of life thanks to the private backing of the ORION company and interest from countries around the Caspian Sea and elsewhere looking for alternative forms of transport for shipping people and cargoes.
The model sold to Iran is the ORION-20 Ekranoplan. It has been in operation in Russia for​ ​the past few years​.
54​ IRAN Country Report August 2020 www.intellinews.com