OREANDA-NEWS. May 21, 2012. Metinvest, an international group of companies working in the sector of mining and metals, has initiated the discussion of steel use in construction in Ukraine. This discussion was conducted within the frames of the First national conference of the steel construction, which involved the leading structural steelwork fabricators, steel roof and facade systems manufacturers, design and scientific institutes, construction and erection companies.

In the course of the discussion, key priorities were formulated: to improve efficiency of the supply chain, implement the best practices in the field of steel frames design, expand product mix and the range of steel solutions. In opinion of the conference participants, the program implementation will allow creation by 2020 of an additional market of structural steelwork, steel facade and roof systems in the volume of 1 mln. t.

The market participants stated the need to establish an organization, which would be able to perform as the focal point of innovative solutions and technical expert assessment of new steel concepts. World practice demonstrates that such centers have proved to be efficient. In the course of the conference it was noted, for instance, that the operation of such a center in the U. K. led to significant growth of structural steelwork application and construction costs reduction: in real terms the cost of structural steelwork in the UK dropped by 40% during 15 years.

The experts also considered interim results of the industry diagnostics, launched by Metinvest at the end of 2011 supported by the industry participants. Thus, today the share of steel frames penetration in the segment of commercial construction (non-residential) is around 25%, whereas in the USA - 55%, in the U. K. — 70%. In the developed countries steel is a major traditional construction material. This is explained by a number of factors — lower cost per 1 sq. m of the projects area, lower cost of foundations, higher speed of construction and higher projects payback through faster cash flow generation, opportunity to provide column-free space design, flexibility of steel solutions enabling most challenging architectural concepts.

Support to the steel construction development program in Ukraine is rendered within the frames of the long term strategy of Metinvest, where one of the priorities is implementation of sophisticated approaches taking into consideration the consumer markets development trends. Global search for opportunities to increase share of steel application in construction and research of the correlation between the modern society development pace and growth of steel consumption is the on-going activity of the World Steel Association (worldsteel). Metinvest is the first and the only Ukrainian company which has the status of full member of the worldsteel.