LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Evraz reported a 0.4% decline in consolidated crude steel production for 2021 on Monday, to 13.57 million tonnes, as crude steel production volumes fell after Russia introduced an export duty through to the end of 2021.
The FTSE 100 miner said that led to lower margins from pig iron production at EVRAZ ZSMK.

Total sales of steel products dropped 4.5% year-on-year for the 12 months ended 31 December, to 12.47 million tonnes.

"This was partly because of the impact that the export duty introduced in Russia in 2021 had on the output of semi-finished products for export, and partly because of a high-base effect following the fulfilment of a contract with the key customer in 2020 in North America," the board said in its statement.

Production of raw coking coal grew 12.7% year-on-year to 23.27 million tonnes, which Evraz said was driven by the resumption of work at Razrez Raspadsky, which had halted operations from May to September 2020 amid poor market conditions.

"Another contributor was the transfer of operations at Esaulskaya to the new longwall 29."

Coking coal concentrate production was ahead 2.8% year-on-year to 15.96 million tonnes, following the increase in coal mining volumes.

External sales volumes of coking coal products, meanwhile, fell 14% to 10.61 million tonnes amid lower raw coking coal sales, following the change in the product mix in favour of coking coal concentrate to meet customer needs.

Output of iron ore products was ahead 1.4%to 14.4 million tonnes, partly driven by higher production volumes of sinter in connection with the implementation of new initiatives in the efficiency improvement programme for 2021, and partly by a low-base effect following capital repairs performed in 2020 at EVRAZ KGOK's sinter machine 1.

External iron ore product sales fell 17.4% year-on-year to 1.43 million tonnes as a result of concentrate shortage in the first quarter of 2021, and an increase in EVRAZ NTMK's demand for pig iron in 2021.

Finally, sales of vanadium products rose 5.7% to 13.29 million tonnes due to overall stronger demand in 2021, caused by the recovery of key steel consuming sectors globally.

At 0911 GMT, shares in Evraz were up 1.79% at 511p.

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