OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2013. Mechel (NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, announces the launch of the universal rolling mill at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev launched the mill in an official ceremony. The company’s and the plant’s management and other officials attended the ceremony.

The universal rolling mill is Russia’s first complex universal producer of high-quality structural shapes and rails of 12.5 to 100 meters long. The mill’s complex includes all necessary technological equipment and uses state-of-the-art rolling, correction, processing and quality control technologies. The mill’s capacity is up to 1.1 million tonnes of finished product a year. Investment in the project totaled some 715 million US dollars.

Italy’s Danieli acted as equipment supplier for the mill, with China’s Minmetals the mill’s primary contractor. The mill’s active construction phase took two years. The mill’s primary building is some 1.5 kilometers long, with the longest technological line for rail production over 3 kilometers long. As a result of implementing the project at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, over 1,500 new jobs were created. Besides, due to the use of advanced technologies during the mill’s construction, the plant’s negative impact on the environment will be dramatically decreased due to old equipment being taken out of commission and new cleansing equipment installed.

The rails produced at the mill are due to be supplied to Russian Railways as part of the Development Strategy for Russian Railway Transport until 2030, approved by the Russian government and including modernization and construction of new railways all over the country. In February 2008, Mechel and Russian Railways signed an agreement for long-term mutually beneficial partnership in providing Russian railways with transport steel rolls. Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant and Russian Railways OAO also signed a contract for annual rail supplies of up to 400,000 tonnes until 2030.

The new rails will be superior to their foreign analogues on several key counts, due to the climatic and other specifics of rail exploitation in Russia, such as resistance to low temperatures, high wear and contact resistance.

“The mill’s launch is a most important event not only for our company, but for the Russian economy as a whole as we will be able to fully meet the needs of Russian customers interested in the universal rolling mill’s products. The project has been successfully completed despite the challenging situation in the Russian and global steel industry. We expect that once the mill reaches its project capacity, it will significantly improve financial results of Mechel’s steel segment. We are proud that our steel will join Russian regions in a network of state-of-the-art high-speed railways,” Chairman of Mechel  Board of Directors Igor Zyuzin noted.