MOSCOW – Evraz increased steel production by 8.7% to 3.678 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2017, the Russian steel and mining company reported.
The growth was due primarily to an increase in production at Evraz North America and the company’s Russian steel plants.
Steel production at the Russian steel mills increased quarter-on-quarter due to capital repairs at EVRAZ ZSMK’s blast furnace No. 3 in Q4 2016. The growth in steel products output at the Russian steel mills primarily reflected an increase in volumes of semi-finished products, while higher volumes of semi-finished products were re-rolled at Evraz North America and Palini e Bertoli.
The increase in production of crude steel and steel products – higher output of tubular, railway and flat-rolled products – at EVRAZ North America was due to higher demand on the North American market, as well as the completion of planned outages at EVRAZ Regina and EVRAZ Pueblo in Q4 2016.
Consolidated raw coking coal output decreased 3.5%, due primarily due to scheduled longwall repositioning at Raspadskaya mine. This was partially offset by an increase in raw coking coal output at Yuzhkuzbassugol’s mines following planned longwall repositioning in Q4 2016 and at Mezhegeyugol following the repositioning of mining equipment.
Output of coking coal concentrate increased by 6.0% quarter-on-quarter due mainly to higher volumes of raw coking coal mined at Mezhegeyugol, which is now processed partly at Yuzhkuzbassugol’s coal washing plants.
Evraz produced 13.527 million tonnes of crude steel in 2016, 5.7% less than in 2015. Evraz plans to produce close to that amount in 2017.
Evraz plc is a major vertically integrated metallurgical and mining company with assets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada, the United States, Italy, Czech Republic, Republic of South Africa, and Ukraine.
Roman Abramovich currently owns 29.24% of Evraz issued shares (31.03% voting shares), Alexander Abramov – 20.15% (21.38%), Alexander Frolov – 10.06% (10.68%), Gennady Kozovoi – 5.56% (5.9%), Alexander Vagin – 5.5% (5.84%) and Eugene Shvidler – 2.91% (3.09%).
