MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Capacity utilization at Russian metallurgic plants averages 85% and the industry rerouted shipments to the domestic market and new export destinations, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview.
"Russian steelworkers have rerouted shipments of steel products to the domestic market and new export destinations following EU restrictions on the import of Russian steel. From my perspective, the pivot was fairly successful in the current conditions," he said. "The utilization of domestic capacity now averages about 85%."
Manturov said that, despite the "panicky" forecasts by foreign experts that steel production could drop by 24%, data about the industry’s performance over the first 10 months of the year show that steel smelting decreased by mere 6.5%. some segments of the market are actually expanding, for example, the production of steel pipes rose by 17.3%, compared with the same period a year earlier.
"The rerouting of shipments to the domestic market has been helped by an incremental rebound in the demand from the construction sector, the production of railcars and the implementation of Gazprom’s projects to lay new pipelines toward Asian Pacific," he said.