The revenues of OAO Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) decreased by 10.87% in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the last quarter of 2009 and thus amounted to 35.2 billion RUR. The company reports this was because of the seasonal drop in demand and therefore in sales.

On top of that, the growing raw materials prices and the increased fees charged by the natural monopolies for their services exerted additional pressure on the company’s gross profit. The gross profit actually went down by 26.62%, from 13.59 billion RUR in the last quarter of 2009 to 9.97 billion RUR in the first quarter of 2010.

NLMK’s sales revenues decreased by 42.3%: from 8.8 billion RUR in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 5 billion RUR in the first quarter of 2010.

At the same time, the first quarter of 2010 was generally better financially than the previous quarter, the company says. For one, the year’s revenues went up by 37% due to increased sales on both the domestic and the foreign markets and due to the growing metal products prices.

Also, NLMK made 2.6 billion RUR worth of net profit in the first quarter of the year, whereas the previous quarter was finished off with 4 billion RUR worth of losses.