Metalloinvest to upgrade production facilities

The Russian Metalloinvest Holding is planning to invest $3 billion in the next five years to update its steel mills for the production of plates, auto grade CR and pipes for the oil and gas industry. The German SMS Demag will supply Metalloinvest's Ural Steel with a new, more efficient oxygen-converter furnace with the capacity to produce 3.5 million metric tons per year, and also with a 1.2 million metric ton-per-year plate mill. It will also build a new large diameter pipe plant at its Ural Steel premises with a capacity of 600,000 metric tons a year. In addition, Demag will build a complex at Metalloinvest's Oskol Metallurgical Plant (OEMK) to produce 1.2 million metric tons per year of CR coils, used in auto and consumer goods industries, thus changing OEMK from an entirely long product plant. Metalloinvest general director Mr. Maxim Gubiyev, commenting on the investment plans, declared, “World metallurgy is developing fast, and without continuous investment in the latest technology we won't be able to compete successfully in the international markets or in Russia”.