ChTPZ Group’s Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant shipped 540,600 tons of tubular goods to their consumers in the first half of 2009, which was actually 38% less than the 867,800 tons delivered to them a year earlier.

The company says the drops in sales have to do with a drastic fall in the demand on the domestic market (they key market, in fact). In fact, the home demand plummeted by 35% in the first half of the year compared with the six months of 2008.