According to the data issued by the Russian Special Steel and Alloys Consumers and Suppliers Association (Spetsstal), in January-September this year Russia's output of stainless steel products rose by 49.7 percent year on year to 91,380 mt.
Accordingly, almost all leading Russian stainless steel producers managed to increase their output. However, compared to January-September 2008, when Russia's stainless steel production amounted to 112,300 mt, the current level of output still lags behind by 18.6 percent.
In the first nine months of this year, the best results were shown by Mechel, which holds a 63 percent share in the Russian stainless steel market. Specifically, Mechel's Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant increased its stainless steel output by 62 percent year on year, exceeded the volumes for the corresponding periods of both 2008 and 2009, while Mechel's subsidiary Izhstal saw its stainless steel output increase by 41.2 percent year on year. Among the key Russian stainless steel producers, Red October Steel Works and Electrostal Metal Works had increased outputs of 56.1 percent and 41 percent respectively.
Of the total Russian stainless steel product output in January-September this year, 50 percent was accounted for by flats, 31.8 percent was accounted for by longs, 8.7 percent consisted of seamless tubes, 3.1 percent was made up of billets, 3.5 percent consisted of welded tubes, and forged pieces accounted for 2.9 percent.
Comparing with 2009, the stainless steel making structure has not significantly changed in Russia this year, except for the production of welded tubes, which means that local stainless steel producers, as before, are oriented towards traditional sectors of consumption and are not in a hurry to increase their production capacities. The only direction which is now actively developing is the building of new facilities for production of stainless steel welded tubes. Many companies have already purchased tube welding mills and Spetsstal expects domestic welded tube production to increase significantly, although still based on imports of stainless steel flats.