‘The unfolding global economic crisis that broke out in the last quarter of 2008 resulted in the dropping demand for steel produce and therefore plummeting prices. Therefore Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) and NLMK Group’s major enterprises did less impressively in terms of output last year compared with 2007,’ says the spokesperson for Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works.

The enterprise produced 1.367 million tons of cast iron in October-December 2008, which was 38.8% less than in July-September 2008; then, their steel, slab, hot-rolled iron, and cold-rolled iron output reached 1,373 million tons, 591 tons, 261,000 tons, and 249,000 tons, respectively. These figures fell short of the previous quarter’s results by 40.2%, 39.7%, 39.3%, and 31.7%, respectively. The production output of steel with polymeric coating came to 66,000 tons in the last quarter of 2008, which was 34.7% less than in the third quarter of the year, the company’s dynamo steel output amounted to 45,000 tons (which fell short of the figures for the third quarter by 52.4%). The transformer steel output came to 38,000 tons, which was 11.9% less than in the third quarter of 2008.

NLMK Group comprises Sverdlovsk Region-based VIZ-Stal and a metallurgical plant in Nizhniye Sergi.

‘The unprecedented drop in demand in September-December 2008 led to a certain weakening of NLMK Group’s financial performance against our initial expectations. As for the start of this year, we can see that the prices keep going down on our Group’s most important markets. Despite the lowering prime cost of our basic product types, the plummeting market prices might affect our finance dynamics badly in the first half of 2009,’ the enterprise reports.