Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) produced 6% less steel in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the last quarter of 2009 and reached 2.8 million tons. The enterprise’s production of finished goods also dropped by 6% and amounted to 2.8 million tons, NLMK stated in its quarterly report for January-March 2010.

In addition, NLMK’s cast iron sales shrank by 59.6% in the last quarter of 2009.

On the whole, however, the company sold 2.8 million tons of finished goods in the first quarter of 2010, which was 1% than in the last quarter of 2009. Among these goods were 1 million tons of slabs (which was 10% more than in the last quarter of 2009), 1.3 million tons of flat rolled products (which was 7% more than in the last quarter of 2009), 43,000 tons of billets (which was 48% less than in the last quarter of 2009), 254,000 tons of bar iron (which was 3.5% more than in the last quarter of 2009), and 48,000 tons of metal goods (which was 0.7 more than in the last quarter of 2009).

‘As for the second quarter of 2010, we expect our steel output to exceed that for the first quarter of the year and to reach about 2.9 million tons. Our financial performance in the second quarter will probably be influenced by the rising metal goods prices on both the global and domestic markets and by the recovering demand on the part of metal-consuming Russian industries,’ NLMK’s analysts believe.