Recovery in spot steel prices, which started in the beginning of the year, is under threat due to the spread of coronavirus as well as political instability, said today in interview the Agency "Argus" Executive Director of the Ukrainian steel producer Metinvest Yuriy Ryzhenkov.
According to Ryzhenkov, the growth of prices for steel, which Metinvest is expected not before the second half of the year started early. He noted that demand is currently stable but at risk because of the uncertainty brought to the market a virus from China.
"At the moment, we do not observe any impact of this virus on our operations, although the markets in which we see the infections are some of our key markets, such as Italy. But at the moment we don't feel any significant effect," he said.
this year the company expects to increase steel production by 8% as a result of nearly 20% growth in production at a metallurgical plant in Mariupol, where the company in 2019, completed the construction of a continuous casting machine billet and the first stage of reconstruction of hot rolling mill. According to Ryzhenkov, the modernization will mostly lead to an increase in production of hot-rolled coils and not the slab, but it depends on the market and which products will be more profitable.
the Growth of production of hot rolled steel in 2020 will be more moderate and will reach 8.1 million tons, while annual production of iron ore will amount to 27 million tons. The split between sales of iron ore from third parties and own consumption is about the same as in 2019, while the plants of the company will consume 11-12 million tons of raw materials.
Earlier today coalsalesthat steel production at the enterprises of Metinvest in 2019 increased by 3% to 7,578 million tons, and the share of steel products in the total production has reached 86%, up 5 percentage points compared to the previous year. Revenue fell 9% compared to last year to 10,757 billion dollars, and EBITDA – on 52%, to 1,213 billion.
