Severestal grew steel oitput in the first quarter of 2015

Steel assets continued to run at near to full capacity, with the Balakovo mini-mill further ramping-up production.

Consolidated sales of steel products declined 4% q/q as Severstal built its internal stock of high value-added products to normal levels after divesting inventories against strong demand in Q4 2014.

There has been an increase in profitability for hot-rolled coil (HRC) export deliveries almost throughout the entire quarter on the back of RUB devaluation, which resulted in higher HRC sales volumes.

The abovementioned factors resulted in a 6 ppts decrease of the share of HVA products in the sales portfolio, to 46% (Q4 2014: 52%).