The share of metal goods delivered by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) onto domestic market went up to 69% of the total shipments volume last year.

‘For reasons of geographical proximity and good growth potential, we see the home market as our priority and a strategically important one,’ says MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov. The company kept on building up on its metal goods sales in Russia for the last few years.

While MMK only sold 36% of its produce domestically in 1999 and shipped 64% abroad, already in 2005 its home sales exceeded the export shipments for the first time. In 2008, MMK sold 7.2 million tons of metal goods (65% of total output) on the home market. It was only in 2009 that, because of the recession, the company had somewhat to focus on the export sales. Last year, however, the sales on the home market reached over 7 million tons, which was 44% more than in the year 2009.

Early last fall, the company’s monthly domestic shipments reached the record-setting 671,000 tons (in September), thus raising the share of home deliveries to 69% - the highest figure in the last fifteen years. The share of exported goods went down accordingly, to 31.2% against 44.1% in 2009.

‘MMK’s key domestic customers are pipe manufacturers (34% of all the home sales in 2010), machine-building enterprises (13%), and the construction and metal products-making industries (9%0,’ the company reports.