OREANDA-NEWS. PAO Severstal announces its operational results for Q3 2015 and 9M 2015.

Severstal Russian Steel ('RSD') increased steel product sales by 13% q/q to 3.01 mln tonnes driven by improved domestic steel consumption and despite less pronounced seasonality this year.

The share of domestic sales within the sales mix increased to 67% (Q2 2015: 59%) reflecting Severstal's ability to efficiently reallocate sales volumes between export and domestic markets and capture improved consumption trends on the domestic market.

Rolling facilities at CherMK remained at almost full capacity in Q3 2015. Improved domestic flat steel consumption led to notable increases in galvanised and metallic coated coil and color coated coil sales volumes, of 44% q/q and 72% q/q respectively. This enabled RSD to maintain the share of HVA products within sales mix at 47% regardless an increase in semi-finished products and hot-rolled coil sales.

Long products sales volumes increased 23% q/q as operational problems at Balakovo, which impacted production volumes in Q2 2015, were successfully resolved. In the meantime, it remains in a ramp-up mode.

While Izhora Pipe Mill capacities were fully utilized in Q3 2015 large diameter pipes (LDPs) sales volumes declined 22% q/q. This mainly reflects change to product mix with higher share of Transneft maintenance projects deliveries q/q. In the meantime, Severstal continued supplying LDPs for the Power of Siberia project and Gazprom maintenance projects.

Despite the continuing downward trend in global steel prices, a seasonal uptick in domestic demand enabled RSD to proceed with RUB-denominated price increases across almost all types of steel products. This helped to partially mitigate the impact of RUB devaluation in Q3 2015.