OREANDA-NEWS. METALLOINVEST, a leading global iron ore and HBI producer and one of the regional steel producers, today announces its operational results for the first quarter of 2013.

Management comments

Iron ore production amounted to 9.5 mn tonnes, representing a decrease of 1.8% q-o-q

Pellet production increased by 3.0% q-o-q to 5.6 mn tonnes

The Company increased production of HBI/DRI by 11.0% q-o-q to 1.4 mn tonnes

Iron ore concentrate and pellet shipments were redistributed from Europe and China to Russia (+18.6%) and South-East Asia (+35.8%) under long-term contracts

Shipments to Russia amounted to 4.1 mn tonnes, representing a 60.8% share of the Company’s total iron ore products shipments. Europe, China and the rest of Asia accounted for 16.2%, 10.5% and 9.9% of shipments, respectively

Mining Segment

LGOK and MGOK reduced iron ore production to 5.0 mn tonnes and 4.1 mn tonnes, a decrease of 0.6% and 3.4% q-o-q, respectively. The decline in output at MGOK was caused by the scheduled change in the scope of open pit iron ore mining

LGOK increased pellet output by 5.9% q-o-q to 2.2 mn tonnes as a result of a scheduled reduction of maintenance works. Pellet production at MGOK declined by 4.6% q-o-q to 2.4 mn tonnes due to the increase of iron ore concentrate shipments

The Company achieved a record high output of HBI, one of its major high value-added products. The output of HBI amounted to 0.7 mn tonnes, representing a 29.4% q-o-q growth. The increase was driven by the completion of one of the scheduled stages of HBI-2 modernisation at the end of 2012

Steel Segment

OEMK increased pellet output by 19.5% q-o-q to 1.0 mn tonnes due to a low base effect following scheduled maintenance work at the Pellet Plant in Q4 2012

Crude steel production at OEMK decreased by 1.7% q-o-q to 0.8 mn tonnes as a result of scheduled major maintenance work at the Electric Arc Furnace

Following the improvement of pig iron market, Ural Steel increased pig iron shipments by 72.1% q-o-q to 0.3 mn tonnes, while decreasing crude steel production by 19.7% q-o-q to 0.5 mn tonnes

The increase of hot metal production led to an increase of intragroup pellet shipments by 18.4% q-o-q to 0.3 mn tonnes. Iron ore concentrate intragroup consumption increased by 18.6% q-o-q due to the ongoing maintenance work at the Sintering Plant at Ural Steel