Novolipetsk Steel idles blast furnace for two months as pig iron demand wanes
MOSCOW. July 6 (Interfax) - Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) is idling a blast furnace due to deterioration in demand in the pig iron market both in Russia and abroad in Q2 2012, starting from July 6, the company said in a statement.
The company is idling its blast furnace (BF) #2 with a capacity of 0.8 mt/y or around 6% of the total pig iron capacity at the Lipetsk plant, for a period of up to 60 days.
This decrease in the output of commercial pig iron will not impact the overall crude steel and rolled product output in the second half of 2012. The idling of BF#2 will allow increasing the loading efficiency for NLMK's remaining blast furnace operations at its Lipetsk plant. NLMK Group confirms its previously announced steel production forecast for 2012 at around 15 mt/y (+30% y-o-y).
NLMK Group's pig iron production capacities (blast furnaces) are concentrated at Novolipetsk, the company's main production site in Lipetsk. With the new blast furnace #7 launched at the end of 2011, these total around 12.5 mt/y of pig iron.
Novolipetsk annual pig iron sales total around 0.8-1.0 mt/y. Pig iron is a product of primary steelmaking mostly used as raw material for the subsequent production of steel, and cast iron products applied in machine building and other areas.
