The company's director for engineering and energy development affairs, Majid Mahmoudi, told reporters on Monday that a total of 672bln rials have been spent on the construction of three oxygen plant units, adding that the once the new projects come into operation Mobarakeh's annual production will reach 1.5 million tons.

Today, Managing-Director of Mobarakeh Steel Company Mohammad Massoud Sameenejad said his company produced 46 percent of Iran's steel output in the first 10 months of 2012.

The World Steel Association (WSA) in a recent report for the first 10 months of 2012 said that Iran is the biggest steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa.

"According to the WSA report, Iran has produced 12.052 million tons of steel in 2012 showing a 10.2 percent increase as compared with the same period last year," Sameenejad said. Iran was the 16th steel producer in the world in September with a production of 1.09mln tons.

The report said that Iran was the 16th steel producer in the world in September with a production of 1.09mln tons. The country produced 13mln tons of steel in 2011.

Earlier this year, an Iranian official announced that the production of steel in Iran has grown 5 million tons in the past two years despite the harsh sanctions imposed by the West against the country.

"Despite intensified sanctions in the last two years, the capacity of Iran's steel production has increased 5mln tons and we will be completely self-sufficient in the steel industry in the next three years," Vice-President of Iran's Steel Association Hamidreza Taherizadeh told FNA in July.