Despite the ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine for over than ten months, Metinvest remains the economic and industrial backbone of the country. The Group's enterprises were able to adapt to new realities to the extent possible and launch the production of new products, in particular, having partially сcompensated the production of the assets in temporarily occupied Mariupol.
Restoring the country's infrastructure and providing Ukrainian consumers with rolled products is one of the main areas for which Metinvest has begun to produce new products.
More products were developed in the segment of shapes and bars (8), hot-rolled coils and plates (6) and steel semi-finished products (6). In addition, two new items entered the categories of cold-rolled coils and hot-rolled plate products each.
Kamet Steel and Zaporizhstal JV developed the lion’s share of new products. By February 24, Azovstal had managed to produce two new grades of hot-rolled plate for machine-building and pipe production industries.
Semi-finished products
Kamet Steel started production of new ingots from four steel grades and hot-rolled blooms of new standard sizes. The plant also started to produce square billets of 275x325 mm in size of modified special steel 30ХН2МА.
Hot-rolled coil and plate
Zaporizhstal JV began to produce hot-rolled plates with a thickness of 8 mm to 120 mm. This is a completely atypical product for the hot-rolling mill 1680, but it is strongly demanded by Ukrainian enterprises for the production of building steel structures when plate products from Mariupol steelmakers of the Group are currently unavailable. Zaporizhstal also began to supply hot-rolled coils of new grades and sizes for machine-building enterprises, which were previously produced only at Ilyich Steel.
The joint work of Metinvest’s entities to develop technology for smelting, casting, rolling and subsequent heat treatment of steel for the manufacture of rigid armour elements – personal protective equipment for military, ballistic protection of special-purpose equipment and shields for large-calibre weapons – should be separately noted. The coordinated actions of different business units of the Group made it possible to quickly overcome the huge shortage of body armoured vests in Ukraine and save thousands of lives of our defenders.
Cold-rolled coil
Zaporizhstal JV has launched the production of two new types of cold-rolled coils. One of them is a double-weight coil without welded seams, which is in demand in construction and machine building. And the other one – products with a size of 0.5-0.6 x 1,250 mm from steel intended for further application of zinc coating. Such coils are demanded by coating entities and other companies producing corrugated board, light steel thin-walled structures and other products with the use of cold roll-forming.
Sections
More products fell into the category of sections. Kamet Steel produced seven types of hot-rolled round products with a diameter of 22 to 38 mm, used in machine building. The plant also developed the production of MP-4 profile, intended for lining grinding mills at iron ore plants.