OREANDA-NEWS. Russia's government has approved plans for the social and economic development of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in Khabarovsk, home to the far-east region's only steelmaker, Amurmetal.

The long-term plan, authorised by prime minister Dmitri Medvedev, spans 2016-2015 and includes plans for the development of the metallurgical industry and for Amurmetal in particular.

The Khabarovsk regional government, the ministries of industry and trade, and development of the Russian far east, state-owned bank Vnesheconombank and the federal anti-monopoly service will all have responsibility for the development plans. In particular, they will determine the needs of regional shipbuilders and whether these can be fulfilled by Amurmetal.

Additional measures providing optimisation of rail tariffs for ferrous scrap transportation to Russian far-east destinations will be developed this year.

Meanwhile, the troubled steelmaker continues to operate under bankruptcy administration and utility Khabarovskenergosbyt has limited its power supplies because Amurmetal's debt has reached 200mn roubles ($3.05mn), the energy company said.

"Amurmetal's non-payments affect our working capital. Although the plant is operating under bankruptcy administration, it takes around 30,000 MWh/month. We have been forced to limit supplies to the power sufficient to maintain technological processes at the plant, to limit its growing debt," Khabarovskenergosbyt said.

Scrap-based Amurmetal already operates only at night, to benefit from lower power tariffs. It has a nameplate billet production capacity of 2.15mn t/y.

The plant failed, for the third time, to attract investors earlier this month and is now publicly offered for sale with an initial price set at Rbs4.1bn.

The plant produced 561,200t of billet last year, down by nearly 15pc compared with 2014. Its main market is southeast Asia, where it sells billet through traders.