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NLMK Temporarily Reducing Pig Iron Production
07/06/2012 - NLMK announced it is idling the No. 2 blast furnace at its Lipetsk plant for a period of 60 days beginning today due to a deterioration in demand for pig iron in Russia and abroad.
Due to deterioration in demand in the pig iron market both in Russia and abroad in the second quarter, beginning July 6, NLMK is idling its No. 2 blast furnace which has a capacity of 800,000 tonnes per year (approximately 6% of the total pig iron capacity at the Lipetsk plant) for a period of up to 60 days.
This decrease in the output of commercial pig iron will not impact the overall crude steel and rolled product output in the second half of 2012. The idling of the No. 2 BF will increase the loading efficiency for NLMK’s remaining blast furnace operations at its Lipetsk plant. NLMK Group confirms its previously announced steel production forecast for 2012 at around 15 million tonnes per year (+30% y-o-y).
NLMK Group’s pig iron production capacities (blast furnaces) are concentrated at Novolipetsk (the company’s main production site in Lipetsk). With the new No. 7 blast furnace launched at the end of 2011, these total around 12.5 million tonnes per year of pig iron.
Novolipetsk annual pig iron sales total around 0.8-1.0 million tonnes/y. Pig iron is a product of primary steelmaking mostly used as raw material for the subsequent production of steel, and cast iron products applied in machine building and other areas.
