Russian railway monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) has announced that since January of the current year it has stopped buying foreign rails. In late 2013, Trading House RZD considered the possibility of buying rails from Japan Nippon Steel in 2014, but finally decided not to. Instead RZD is about to buy rails from Evraz and Mechel instead of foreign rails.
RZhD had been purchasing a lot of Japanese production rails during the reconstruction and updating of the rail-and-structural steel mill at EVRAZ West-Siberian Iron-and-Steel works (Evraz ZSMK). Since 2013, Evraz ZSMK has started producing 100-meter rails.