Russian crude steel output raises

According to the data released the Federal State Statistics Service of Russian Federation, the country's production of crude steel rose 7.6 percent, that of long products rose 9.4 percent and that of flat rolled rose 6.3 percent, including increase of 8 percent in the output of CR, year on year in January-July 2006. In July of 2006, Russia produced 5.9 million metric tons of crude steel, up 10.6 percent, 2.3 million metric tons of long products, up 13.5 percent, 2.1 million metric tons of flat rolled, up 5.1 percent, including 8 percent increase in CR output to 717,000 metric tons, compared to July 2005. However, month on month indexes show 0.8 percent decrease in production of crude steel, 2.3 percent decrease in production of long products, and 0.2 percent decrease in production flat rolled in July of 2006. In addition, Alexei Pinchuk, an Industry and Energy Ministry of Russian Federation official, said that Russian steel pipe production, which showed 17.3 percent increase year on year in January-July of 2006, could rise 7.5 percent to 7.2 million metric tons in 2006.