Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) successfully went through an environmental management system audit aimed at checking the system’s compliance with the ISO 14001-2004 standards, the enterprise’s PR Department reports.

For three days, a committee of experts from Germany-based TUV NORD, an international certifying body, headed by Chief Auditor Vladimir Tzvetichanin, examined MMK’s environmental management system. Seventeen production divisions, administrations, and departments were subject to audit, including the leading rolling shops, steel-smelting processing shops, and the energy sector and mining processing divisions. According to Tzvetichanin, the auditors did not detect any deviations from the standard requirements. The committee came to the conclusion that MMK’s environmental management system meets the ISO 14001-2004 requirements.

The environmental management system, certified for meeting the ISO 14001 demands, has been operating at MMK since 2004; last year, the system underwent re-certification audit, so its certificate was renewed for three more years. Following a yearly audit, the system’s meeting the international standards gets confirmed. The company’s environmental management system currently covers the development and production of limestone, lime, dolomite, macadam, coke and coke-based products, steel, CC slabs meant for hot rolling, hot- and cold-rolled rolls and sheets, rolled section products, cold-rolled strip material, tin, zinc-coated steel, rolled products with polymeric coating, electric-welded and zinc-coated pipes, steel formed sections, electric power, and heat transfer agents.

MMK management now sees the decrease in the man-caused impact on the environment as one of its strategic priorities. In the first half of 2011, MMK spent about 1.3bn RUR on the construction of new and the reconstruction of the existing protective facilities. Most of this money was directed to putting up cleaning facilities for the new cold-roll Mill 2000.