The Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that in 2009 its long products division NLMK-Long Products decreased its steel product output by 11 percent year on year to 1.7 million mt, mainly due to the slow activity in the construction sector.
Accordingly, in 2009, NLMK's long products division decreased its sale of rebar by 7.6 percent to 902,000 mt and saw its sales of billets fall by 55.7 percent to 240,000 mt; however, its sales of wire rod increased by 6.5 percent to 217,000 mt and sales of metalware rose by 28.5 percent to 187,000 mt, all compared to 2008. The total 2009 sales volume of ferrous and nonferrous scrap of companies of NLMK's scrap processing subsidiary Vtorchermet amounted to about 2.45 million mt - down 9.5 percent year on year. The longs division saw the most significant decrease in H1 2009, when its sales fell 30 percent year on year. However, demand picked up in H2 2009, lifting its sales volume.
Most of NLMK-Long Products' product deliveries in 2009 were to the Russian domestic markets. As a result, in 2009 its share in the Russian rebar market increased year on year from 15 to 22 percent, its share in the domestic wire rod market rose from eight to 16.5 percent, and its share in the Russian low-carbon metalware market climbed from 13 percent in 2008 to 21 percent. Meanwhile, the company's share of shipped scrap in the total consumption of this type of raw material by Russian companies amounted to 17 percent in 2009.
NLMK-Long Products include Nizhne-Serginsky Metallurgical and Metalware Plant, Uralsky Plant of Precision Alloys, Berezovsky Electrometallurgical Plant, Kaluzhsky Electrometallurgical Plant, and companies in the Vtorchermet NLMK industrial association.