According to local media, Russia-based IMH’s subsidiary Promsort, which recently bought NLMK’s longs business, will be obliged by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to sell at least five percent of the monthly production from the newly purchased plants on the stock exchange. The decision will have to be implemented within six months from the date of the transaction, according to the official info. FAS is making such a decision for the first time.
“We all start to understand that there will be less and less Russian steel in the deep sea export market,” a source close to the company said.
As SteelOrbis reported on September 11, Russian steelmaker NLMK Group sold its long steel products business, which includes its Ural-based subsidiaries, namely NLMK Ural, NLMK Metalware, and assets of NLMK Vtorchermet, and NLMK Kaluga to IMH. The total crude steel capacity of the EAFs sold under this deal is 3.7 million mt per year, according to SteelOrbis’ data.
The producer has been planning to sell most of the steel from its new assets in the local market, though it also planned to export some of the steel. However, given the recently introduced tax for exports of most production from Russia, IMH is going to follow the tactics of higher prices in the export market, which will result in a decline in sales, according to market sources.
The purchase of the plants from NLMK is going to severely impact the export of pig iron from IMH also. According to sources, in the years before Russia invaded Ukraine, the pig iron export volume from Tulachermet (a part of IMH) amounted to 150,000 mt per month, while in 2023 the monthly tonnage was around 70,000 mt. Sources close to the mill said that in the coming months the export allocation will fall to around 35,000 mt per month.