Ukrainian steelmaker Metinvest, which was the largest global pig iron supplier in 2018, reduced its pig iron sales volumes twice in January-March 2019 because it switched to higher output of steel slab, the company said in an operational report on Friday April 26.
The company shipped 225,000 tonnes of pig iron to the market in the first quarter of 2019. That was a sharp drop of 50% from pig iron sales in the fourth quarter of 2018, when the corresponding volume was 452,000 tonnes. In the first quarter of 2018, Metinvest's pig iron shipments totaled 474,000 tonnes.In total in 2019, Metinvest may reduce its pig iron shipments by 500,000-1 million tonnes, chief executive officer Yuriy Ryzhenkov told Fastmarkets earlier.In January-March 2019, Fastmarkets' average price assessment for CIS exports of high-manganese pig iron...