OREANDA-NEWS. In the first quarter of 2007 production output at iron ore mining and dressing enterprises of Metalloinvest (Lebedinsky GOK and Mikhailovsky GOK) maintained flat year on year.

According to the press service of  the Management Company “Metalloinvest”, in the period, concentrate output was 9.39 million tones (in 2006 the enterprise produced 9.29 million tones of concentrate), pellets output amounted to 4.95 million tones (4.93 million tones in 2006), HBI production made up 267,800 tones (266,000 tones in 2006), sintering ore output was 654,200 tones while 613,600 tones of sintering ore was produced in the same period of 2006.

Mikhailovsky GOK plans to further increase iron ore products output after a reconstructed crushing complex to be set in operation in April. The new technology provides for processing of 1.250 million tones of unoxidized ferrous quartzite, which earlier went to wastedump. This will substantially low the cost price and contribute to more efficient use of natural resources.

Steel producing enterprises of the holding (Oskol Electrometallurgical Works and Ural Steel) increased core production output over the same period of 2006. Marketable rolled stock output increased 6% to 1.23 million tones against 1.16 million in the first quarter of 2006. Crude steel output grew 6% making 1.58 million tones against 1.49 million in 2006), pig iron output was 641.900 tones which represents 2% increase over 2006 when the output stood at 631.200 tones.