Raspadskaya Coal Company (Raspadskaya), the second largest coking coal producer in Russia and a subsidiary of domestic steelmaker Evraz Group, is forced to decrease its investments for 2009 by about 64 percent to Ruble 2 billion (approx. $55.2 million), compared with Ruble 5.5 billion (approx $151.77 million) invested in 2008, due to the current situation of financial crisis.
Accordingly, the biggest part of its 2009 investments will be used to refinance the company's credit debts, and to fund the construction of its "Raspadskaya-Koksovaya" mine.
Due to the lack of coking coal demand from steelmakers, in January 2009, the company operated at 30 percent of its capacity, producing 275,000 mt coking coal. Raspadskaya operated at 17 percent of its capacity in November 2008, and at 25 percent in December. The company expects to continue working at 30 percent of capacity for all of the first quarter of 2009.
Due to the output drop, the company is losing about Ruble 250 million ($6.9 million) a month.