Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) sold around 1.8 million tons of long products in 2018, of which 98% were shipped to the domestic market including CIS countries.
This was announced by the MMK Sales Department’s leading expert, Alexander Margishvili, at the “Long and Shaped Products: New Market Configuration” conference which took place in Moscow. According to him, despite an increasing excess production capacity for long products in Russia (currently, less than 50% of production capacities are being utilized), MMK’s sales in 2018 remained at approximately the same level as in the previous year, amounting to around 1.8 million tons. MMK’s production capacities for long products are being fully utilized. Thus, 78% of long products were sold in the Russian market, another 20% went to CIS countries, and the remaining 2% was exported.
Recently, MMK has been aiming to reduce production of its ordinary range and to increase its production of more high-margin products. The latter already accounts for around 30% of sales. MMK is increasing its long product sales via its own sales network, MMK Trading House, which has over 30 branches in Russia, including a production site in Shchyolkovo, a service metal center (SMC) in Magnitogorsk, as well as 5 warehouses in Kazakhstan. Since 2014, MMK Trading House’s long product sales both in Russia and Kazakhstan have grown by 23%, from 315,000 tons to 387,000 tons. In order to increase its long product sales, MMK is working to enter new markets and commercial sectors and aims to continuously improve the quality of its products, customer service, and business processes as well as to introduce IT technologies. (MMK/Ukrainian metal)