Russian steelmaker NLMK has announced that its iron ore subsidiary Stoilensky has produced its fifteen-millionth mt of pellets since the launch of its pelletizing plant in November 2016.
In March this year, Stoilensky signed a development contract with the Finnish company Outotec to increase the pelletizing plant's installed capacity by a third - from 6 million mt to 8 million mt of pellets per year. This project, part of Strategy 2022, will ensure NLMK Group's control over raw material costs in the long term.
NLMK said that in 2019-2021 it plans to boost ore production and beneficiation capacity by 14 percent through modernization of Stoilensky's other transformation stages with a view to ensure stable supply of raw materials to the pelletizer after it reaches the output of 8 million mt. This will enable the company to increase its ore processing capacity from 37 million mt to 42 million mt and to increase its concentrate output from 17.3 million mt to 20 million mt per year.