Khorasan is a vast province which sits on massive God-given reserves like iron ore mines, natural gas and coal and enjoys committed, skillful human resources. This province which shares border with Afghanistan and Central Asian countries has an extensive network of roads, railways, power plants, etc. The province’s advantages prompted officials and state planners to carry out a thorough feasibility study in 1983 to weigh the launch in the province of a giant steelmaking complex with an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tons. Six years later, with engineering studies concluded, a plot of land (1,400 hectares in area) 15 km to the northwest of Neishabur was designated as construction site of the complex. The land acquisition process immediately got underway and was followed by measures to prepare and equip the construction site in that area.
In November 1996, a $152 million contact was inked with Italy’s Danieli Group to purchase the project’s machinery. Seven months later, i.e. in June 1997, operations got underway to install equipment in Khorasan Steel Complex.
It was on June 21, 2001 that the Rolled Structural Steel Sections plant of Khorasan Steel Complex – the largest steelmaking company in eastern Iran – was inaugurated in line with the government’s economic policy which focused on reaching industrial self-sufficiency and weaning the country from dependence on imports of strategic products. In February 2002, the Melting and Casting plant was inaugurated. The Direct Reduction Plant No. 1 was launched in February 2010. That was followed by the inauguration of Direct Reduction Plant No. 2 in 2011. The collective annual production volume of the two plants stands at 1.8 million tons. In 2017 the complex’s Steelmaking Mill No. 2 with a production capacity of 740,000 tons was launched and in the following year the president inaugurated the complex’s Pelletizing Mill to produce 2.5 million tons of pellets on an annual basis.
Currently operations are underway to construct the iron ore concentrate mill in Sangan District (Khaf County), northeast of Khorasan Razavi Province. The project is now 22 percent complete.
The giant economic complex which has been praised as “a pioneer on the industrial front in eastern Iran” has created direct employment for 5,000 people along its production lines, and in logistics and transportation units. The number of jobs created indirectly is even greater.
