The Russian steelmaker Severstal has announced that its Cherepovets subsidiary is to continue its practice of concluding long-term supply agreements with the Russian domestic car producers.
According to Sergey Kuznezhov, Severstal Cherepovets' director of sales to the automobile industry, the work under long-term contracts (covering periods of a half to one and a half years) allows the partners to strictly plan production capacities, to understand each others' demands for services and other parameters of cooperation.
In addition, Severstal is continuing to master new products for the automobile industry. In the first quarter of 2008, Severstal fulfilled a contract under which it supplied a trial-industrial batch of cold rolled and galvanized steel to AVTOVAZ to be later used in the production of Lada-Samara, Lada-Priora, Lada-Kalina, Chevrolet-Niva car models. Furthermore, Severstal has already mastered and is currently successfully processing galvanized auto sheet for the production of Renault, produced at Avtofromos. The new type of steel possesses special anti-corrosion characteristics.