The Russian steelmaker MMK Group has released its operational results for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2019.
Accordingly, in the third quarter of this year, the company recorded a 3.3 percent rise in its crude steel output to 3.19 million mt and a 4.4 percent growth in its pig iron output to 2.56 million mt due to the completion of the scheduled overhaul of the blast furnace No.7 and higher productivity, both compared to the previous quarter. In the given period, MMK’s finished steel production totaled 2.78 million mt, up 2.1 percent quarter on quarter.
The company’s domestic shipments totaled 2.54 million mt in the third quarter, up four percent quarter on quarter, while the company’s exports, on the other hand, totaled 246,000 mt in the given quarter, down 13.9 percent compared to the previous quarter. The volume of shipments in the third quarter grew 2.1 percent as compared to the previous quarter and amounted to 2.78 million mt mainly due to the continued high demand in the company’s key sales markets and a decrease in the finished product stock in the warehouses.
Meanwhile, in the January-September period, the company’s crude steel output totaled 9.39 million mt, down 1.7 percent, while its pig iron output totaled 7.41 million mt, increasing by 1.5 percent both year on year. In the given period, MMK’s finished steel production totaled 8.25 million mt, down 4.1 percent year on year.
In the first nine months of this year, the company’s domestic shipments totaled 7.43 million mt, rising by 8.6 percent, while the company’s exports totaled 821,000 mt, down 53.2 percent, both year on year.
“The company's management expects that the seasonally weak business activity coupled with a significant correction in global prices will affect MMK Group’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2019. The impact of these negative factors should be partly offset by higher operational efficiency and high capacity utilization of high-margin production units,” says MMK.