Russia’s Evraz expects production to decline in the second quarter owing to 24 days of maintenance work on its Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant (NTMK) blast furnaces. This comes after consolidated crude and finished steel output in Q1 were more or less stable on-quarter at 3.9 million tonnes and 3.7mt respectively.

Semi-finished product output rose 5% on-quarter to 1.44mt thanks to Evraz’s “low-cost position” and the rouble and hryvnia devaluations which boosted exports. Railway products output grew 6.6% to 401,000t due to increased orders from Evraz’s key customers in Russia and North America (NA), the producer says in report seen by Kallanish.

Other finished products performed less well, however. Flat-rolled products output declined -10.6% on-quarter to 209,000t on reduced production in NA, while pipe output in NA also declined -4% to 264,000t. The main reasons for this were reduced demand for OCTG in Canada, as well as fewer commodity plate bookings “as a result of distributors reducing their substantial inventory over-hang of imported plate”, Evraz says. Construction steel output fell -5.5% to 1.18mt due to weaker demand in Russia.

Evraz’s Russian operations saw a 2.6% on-quarter rise in crude steel output to 3.06mt, but finished steel output declined -2% to 1.38mt. The firm produced 1% more semis at 1.42mt and 8.5% more railway products at 258,000t. The latter was due to higher consumption by Russian Railways and increased exports to Latin America and the Middle East. Construction steel output, however, fell -5% to 981,000t.

In Q1 Evraz raised Russian domestic prices for steel products in roubles, “partially eliminating the disproportion caused by the steep rouble devaluation versus the US dollar in Q4 2014”, the firm says. Average Russian selling prices in Q1 were $303/tonne for semis, down from $392/t in Q4 2014; $418/t for construction steel, down from $484/t; and $512/t for railway products, down from $613/t.

In Ukraine, Evraz produced 7.5% more crude steel on-quarter at 233,000t. This was driven by a 29% surge in semis output to 104,000t thanks to export demand. It was in spite of a -15% decline in finished steel output to 92,000t due to a “deterioration of the economic environment in Ukraine and softening demand in the Russian market”.