Russia's new steel production and sales increased year on year
Crude capacity utilization of NLMK in Russia increased 3% YoY to 98% in 2017, mainly due to the increased production efficiency of Lipetsk Steel Works and the demand for steel products in Russia's domestic and overseas markets Growth drives capacity utilization growth;The output of crude steel increased slightly by 2.6% YoY to 17.08m tonnes. The output of commercial slab increased slightly by 2.6% YoY to 6.73m tonnes, while the output of sheet metal increased 5.3% YoY to 8.51mt. The output of long products increased slightly by 1.7% YoY to 1.95m tonnes.
From 2017 full year, Russia's new steel sales of 16.47 million tons, a slight increase of 3.4%. Among them, the sales of slab slumped 3.0% YoY to 4.6mt, while sales of flat products increased 5.9% YoY to 8.49mt.
