OREANDA-NEWS. OJSC Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works ("MMK") supplied 86 ths tonnes of metal products to shipbuilders in 2015, which represents a nearly 11% growth y-o-y.

MMK has increased its shipbuilding steel supplies for the second year running. In 2014, the shipments grew 37% y-o-y to 78 ths tonnes. The Company supplies up to half of all metal products sold to the Russian shipbuilding industry.

United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) is the key customer of MMK in the shipbuilding industry. In 2011, United Shipbuilding Corporation and MMK signed a memorandum on strategic cooperation. The two companies agreed to develop their scientific and technological partnership on existing and upcoming shipbuilding products. Currently, MMK's steel is used to construct a number of major ships at USC, including Project 22220's universal nuclear ice-breakers Arctic and Siberia, multi-functional diesel-electric ice-breaker (Project 22600), named Victor Chernomyrdin, diesel-electric ice-breaker Aker ARC 130 А and others.

MMK's steel production for the shipbuilding industry has been expanded following the commissioning of the thick plate Mill 5000 in 2009. The thick plate mill can produce steel used to manufacture the Russian naval fleet, tankers, modern ice-class vessels. Mill 5000 steel for shipbuilding is certified by organisations such as Lloyd's Register, Bureau Veritas of France, the American Bureau of Shipping, Det Norske Veritas in Norway, Germanischer Lloyd, and the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping.