In the January-June period of the current year, Ukraine's largest vertically-integrated mining and steel group Metinvest saw a 77.6 percent increase in its crude steel production to 7.345 million mt helped by the use of high quality coke. In particular, in the given period Metinvest saw a 73.4 percent year-on-year increase in its pig iron production to 6.166 million mt.
In January-June, Metinvest's semi-finished steel output went down by 12.5 percent year on year to 1.424 million mt. In particular, production of slabs increased by 7.3 percent to 1.187 million mt, while square billet output declined by 54.5 percent to 237,000 mt - influenced among other factors by the decommissioning of open-hearth furnaces at Azovstal.
In January-June, the finished steel output of Metinvest increased by 118.5 percent compared to the same period of last year to 5.106 million mt, including 3.402 million mt of flat steel, up 197.1 percent, 1.286 million mt of long products, up 27.2 percent, 324,000 mt of pipes, up 211.5 percent, and 94,000 mt of rail products, up 22.1 percent - all comparisons being on year-on-year basis.