Metalloinvest, one of the leading global iron ore and hot briquetted iron (HBI) producers based in Russia, has announced its annual operational results for 2019.
In the given period, Metalloinvest produced 40.2 million mt of iron ore, which is relatively stable year on year. However, in the September-December quarter iron ore production decreased by 2.2 percent quarter on quarter to 10.173 million mt. The company’s iron ore product shipments in 2019 increased by 3.3 percent year on year, to 26.7 million mt, mostly due to the significant growth of supply to the Asian region, which rose by 5.5 times year on year. As a result, the share of iron ore product shipments to Asia in 2019 amounted to 21.8 percent of the total volume, compared to four percent in 2018.
As a result of the completion of major maintenance at pellet plant No.2 at LGOK and the reconstruction of pellet plant No. 3 at MGOK, total pellet production in 2019 amounted to 28.1 million mt, up 1.5 percent year on year.
Metalloinvest’s output of HBI/DRI in 2019 amounted to 7.9 million mt, up 0.5 percent year on year. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter production increased by 5.6 percent quarter on quarter to 1.96 million mt. The positive changes were as a result of completion of scheduled major maintenance works at DRI Plant No.1 and DRI Plant No. 2 at OEMK and at HBI-1 Plant and HBI-2 Plant at LGOK, as well as the increase in production volumes at HBI-3 Plant, the most productive facility.
In 2019, Metalloinvest’s production of pig iron fell by 9.1 percent year on year to 2.7 million mt due to maintenance works at blast furnaces. In the same period, its shipments decreased by 20.3 percent year on year to 1.7 million mt, mainly due to the growth of internal consumption.
Amid maintenance works at Ural Steel in the third quarter of the previous year, in 2019 Metalloinvest produced 4.9 million mt of crude steel, down by 3.7 percent year on year.