MMK Group, one of the largest flats producers in Russia, plans to restart its hot-rolling line in Turkey’s Iskenderun region, following years of halted operations at the facility.
The announcement has been recently made by Pavel Shilyaev, the company’s general manager, while previously the restart has been rumoured around in the media sources for many times.
According to sources, MMK plans to resume operations at its 2 million mt per year hot-rolling line at its asset MMK Metalurji, located in the Iskenderun region of Turkey. The facility stopped its operations back in December 2012, only two years after its start up due to the imbalance in terms of costs of production and sales revenues. Back then the company decided to concentrate on coated steel production and sales and succeeded to become one of the key re-rollers in Turkey and an important export player. The HRC for rolling operation has been supplied mainly from the mother company in Russia and also partly booked from local and alternative import sources when required.
The HR-line at MMK Metalurji is expected to start operations in September this year. “We have taken a decision to resume the hot rolling operations. We have started works regarding the restart of the electric-arc furnaces and there is a clar schedule on the raw materials’ purchases, the labor and capital. According to our plan, in around 4-4.5 months we will start producing the HRC at our Turkish mill,” the MMK general manager said. Sources believe MMK has taken a positive decision regarding MMK HR line in accordance with the currently booming flats markets. In particular, the prices for HRC in Turkey have reached $1,050/mt ex-works and might rise further. In addition, there is good demand for the Turkish coated steel, specifically in the EU.