Various outlets have focused in recent days on specific sectors being eyed by investors as Iranian markets are reopened to the world under the terms of the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA), even as President Barack Obama on Wednesday extended some sanctions after informing Congress that the Islamic Republic “continue[d] to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that “global steelmakers have Iran in their sights,” and described “a steel conference last month in Tehran to study export opportunities and investing” that had been attended by roughly 45 producers.

ArcelorMittal (MT) and Russia’s OAO Novolipetsk Steel have mills in central Asia that supplied Iran before sanctions in 2007, when it imported 12.2 million tons a year of the metal, valued at $6 billion today. Other steelmakers are quietly testing the waters. “We feel the interest,” Mehdi Karbasian, Iran’s deputy minister of Industry, Mines and Commerce, said in an interview. “We witnessed it in private meetings we’ve had.”

“There is a softening of the stance” against Iran by foreign powers, Aditya Mittal, chief financial officer of Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal told investors last month. “Kazakhstan used to sell a lot to Iran and we are hearing the Iranian market is opening up.”

The Wall Street Journal had noted on Tuesday that some investors viewed Iran as “Turkey with oil,” and that there was a growing consensus that those who managed to “get in early” would profit substantially. The characterizations risk reinforcing the long-expressed concerns of analysts who worried that the JPA would trigger a gold rush that would all but collapse the post-JPA international sanctions regime. Congressional efforts to counter the potential for such a downward spiral have been stymied by heavy administration pressure.

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