EVRAZ makes solid start to 2012

Mining giant EVRAZ said that consolidated crude steel production increased by five per cent from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012 as growth in Russia, North America and South Africa offset declines in output in Ukraine and Europe.

The firm produced 4.325m tonnes of crude steel in the first three months of the year, compared with 4,136m tonnes in the preceding quarter (+4.6%) helped by the completion of maintenance works at EVRAZ ZSMK steel mill in Russia, EVRAZ Pueblo and Regina in North America. However, when compared with the first quarter of 2011, output fell by 1.4%.

Meanwhile, the share of finished products in the consolidated steel product mix grew from 76% to 81% quarter-on-quarter as a result of the increase in railway and flat-rolled steel production.

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Ukrainian steel production fell by 8% due to the planned maintenance work at one of its blast furnaces, while European output fell 9% as a result of the steel shop operating at maximum capacity the quarter before.

In other operations, iron ore production fell by 3%, coking coal production jumped 41% in the absence of longwall repositionings at mines, and vanadium production grew by 22%.

BC