OREANDA-NEWS. PAO Severstal (MICEX-RTS: CHMF; LSE: SVST), one of the world's leading vertically integrated steel and steel-related mining companies, today announces its operational results for Q4 2014 and FY 2014.

In terms of steel production volumes, Q4 2014 was broadly in line with Q3 2014 despite seasonality: crude steel production increased 1% q/q to 2.89 mln tonnes, while hot metal production was up 2% q/q to 2.32 mln tonnes. That said, growing efficiency of our converters comes from a wider use of higher Fe content pellets, which allows us to partially replace expensive scrap.

Consolidated sales of steel products slightly decreased 1% q/q due to marginal change to the product mix and short-term maintenance at one of the rolling mills.

Share of high value-added products in the sales portfolio remained around historical record levels of 52% (Q3 14: 53%) reflecting our strategic focus on downstream development and despite the increase in the output of semi-finished products post the completion of repairs at one of the converters at the end of Q3 2014.

Steel assets continued to run at near to full capacity in Q4, with the Balakovo mini-mill ramping-up further.

Coking coal concentrate sales volumes at Vorkutaugol increased 25% q/q to almost 1.47 mln tonnes.

Iron ore pellets sales remained broadly flat q/q at 2.75 mln tonnes (Q3 2014: 2.74 mln tonnes).

Whilst average selling prices for all products declined in USD terms, they are up q/q in RUB. Moreover, despite seasonally low market, domestic RUB-nominated prices continue to catch up with the export USD-nominated parity since the beginning of 2015 as well.