Ukraine's sole flat steel producer Metinvest significantly increased slab sales in the third quarter of 2019, helped by the commissioning of a new continuous casting machine at its Illych Iron & Steel Works earlier this year.
Slab sales to third parties soared by 50,87% year on year, to 519,000 tonnes, compared with 344,000 tonnes in July-September 2018, the company said on November 1.The Illych works and Metinvest's Azovstal Iron & Steel Works both underwent scheduled maintenance during the quarter. In a quarter-on-quarter comparison Metinvest's slab shipments increased by 7% from the 483,000 tonnes shipped in April-May. The new continuous casting machine, which has an annual capacity of 2,5 million tonnes, started up in March, with Metinvest redirecting some of its merchant pig iron output from steel production to feed the machine. Shipments of merchant pig...