Japanese company Mitsui & Co., Ltd has signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with Russian steelmaker Severstal to establish a new steel service center for automobile steel in Leningrad Oblast, close to St. Petersburg, the second largest city in the Russian Federation. The registered capital of the new service center will be Ruble 970 million (approximately JPY 2.5 billion), and operations are targeted to begin in the middle of 2013. The annual capacity of this service center will be 170,000 mt. With this agreement, Mitsui will be the first Japanese trading company to participate in a steel service center in Russia.
With Mitsui's worldwide experience operating steel service centers and Severstal's stable steel supply and technical capabilities, Mitsui and Severstal will combine their strengths to participate in the development of the Russian automotive industry and in the strengthening of the steel service center base in the Russian market.