The Russian steelmaker and iron ore producer Evraz Group (Evraz) has released its production results for the third quarter of 2009, which registered a decline in year on year terms, but mostly marked an improvement from the second quarter of this year.
Accordingly, in the third quarter Evraz registered a 45.7 percent increase in coke production, a 19.9 percent raise in pig iron production, a 24.6 percent boost in crude steel output and a 17.3 percent increase in its rolled steel production, all compared to Q2 2009. The respective figures in metric tons were 552,000, 3.025 million, 4.24 million and 3.83 million. During the period in question, Evraz's output of flat rolled products went up by 44.4 percent to 589,000 metric tons, its construction products output increased by 25.9 percent to 1.21 million metric tons, its semi-finished products output rose by 19.8 percent to 1.435 million metric tons, its rail products output went down by 15.9 percent to 342,000 metric tons, while its tubular products output decreased by 23.5 percent to 117,000 mt, all compared to the second quarter of 2009.
In addition, in the third quarter of this year Evraz's mining division saw a 3.4 percent increase in iron ore concentrate production to 1.64 million metric tons, a 7.8 percent rise in sinter production to 910,000 metric tons, but a 3.2 percent drop in pellet production to 1.39 million metric tons, all compared to Q2 2009. Furthermore, Evraz mined 2.38 million metric tons of coking coal in Q3 2009, registering a decrease of 13.3 percent quarter on quarter, but a 9.3 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
In Q3 2009, Evraz recorded a 71.5 percent increase quarter on quarter in its vanadium-added alloys and chemicals output to 3.203 million mt, and a 7.1 percent rise in its vanadium-added slag production to 3.46 million mt.
Accordingly, the majority of Evraz's production facilities are currently operating at 100 percent of their capacity utilization level, and in the fourth quarter the company plans to maintain the achieved output level. In Q3 2009, Evraz's Russian crude steel output increased by 21.5 percent to 3.143 million mt, its European crude steel production went up by 169.8 percent to 178,000 mt, its North American crude steel output increased by 34.6 percent to 478,000 mt, and its South African crude production scaled up by 32 percent to 198,000 mt, all compared to Q2 2009. In addition, Evraz has also reported higher Q3 prices compared to Q2 for its products in Europe and South Africa, regardless of the year-on-year decrease they recorded.