NLMK to boost steel output by 40 percent in next two years

Monday, 06 September 2010 11:41:52 (GMT+2)

By 2012, Russian steelmaking company Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) plans to boost its steelmaking capacities by 40 percent to 17 million mt and to significantly improve the quality and range of products as well as its production efficiency, NLMK's chairman Vladimir Lisin said at a meeting with Russia's prime minister Vladimir Putin on Friday, September 3. NLMK's steel and port investment projects were the main items of discussion at the meeting.

According to Mr. Lisin, despite the impact of the crisis, over the last three years NLMK's investments in modernization and in the construction of new facilities amounted to Ruble 109 billion ($3.57 billion). In 2010, NLMK plans an investment of Ruble 57 billion ($1.86 billion).

In particular, NLMK's major projects in 2010 are the new 3.4 million mt annual capacity blast furnace No. 7 in Lipetsk with total investments of more than $1.5 billion, the 1.5 million mt EAF-based mini‐mill in Kaluga, that will process scrap from across the Moscow region and produce steel for construction, and the new rolling mill at its Berezovsky plant with a total annual capacity of about one million mt of wire rod and rebar.

"As a priority we also consider transport infrastructure. This year we commissioned a grain terminal in the southern port of Tuapse, a freight and vehicle terminal at the port in St. Petersburg, and the first facility at the St. Petersburg container terminal," noted Mr. Lisin, who is also the main shareholder of one of the Russia's largest transport companies, Universal Cargo Logistics Holding, which has a total throughput of about 15 million mt of cargo per year.

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