Metalloinvest, a leading global iron ore and hot briquetted iron (HBI) producer based in Russia, has announced its operational results for the first quarter of the current year.
Accordingly, in the given quarter Metalloinvest's iron ore production decreased by two percent quarter on quarter to 9.9 million mt. Its iron ore shipments declined by 22.8 percent quarter on quarter in the same period to 1.88 million mt.
Metalloinvest's pellet production and shipment volumes in the first quarter amounted to 6.7 million mt and 3.08 million mt, up 2.7 percent and declining by 12.1 percent respectively, both quarter on quarter. The increase in the company’s pellet production in the given quarter resulted from the completion of the scheduled maintenance works and a change in the product mix.
In the first quarter, Metalloinvest's crude steel production was up six percent to 1.23 million mt, largely a result of increased activity at Ural Steel's continuous casting machine No. 1 to satisfy growing demand for billets, while its pig iron output went up by 5.9 percent to 716,000 mt, mainly due to the completion of maintenance works in the last quarter of 2017 and growth in internal consumption of hot metal.
"In the first quarter of this year, Metalloinvest continued the successful implementation of its strategy to increase volumes of value-added products, raising production of pellets, HBI, hot metal and steel. Our customers benefited from a quarter-on-quarter increase in our high-quality product output, with HBI shipments increasing by 10 percent and high value-added steel up by 14 percent," stated Andrey Varichev, CEO of Metalloinvest.