Russian steel and vanadium producer Evraz's sales of final vanadium products fell by 5.3% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2019 to 2.52 million tonnes, the company said in a trading update on Monday April 29.
This was down from 2.66 million tonnes of pure vanadium produced in the fourth quarter of 2018, and down by 19% year-on-year from the first quarter of 2018, when Evraz produced 3.11 million tonnes.The fall in sales was mainly due to a sharp decline in demand from the automotive industry and high stock levels at steelmakers, which were accumulated during a period of sharp ferro-vanadium price increases, Evraz said."Lower car production and sales globally had a negative effect on demand for ferro-vanadium in the first quarter of the year," Alexander Erenburg, the head of the vanadium division at Evraz, said during a conference call on April 29.Weaker demand from the steel industry outside China, followed by heavy destocking at steelmakers, which was triggered by falling prices for ferro-vanadium, negatively affected first-quarter sales, Evraz added."Ferro-vanadium prices decreased by around $40 per tonne quarter on quarter, mostly due to the elevated price...