Russian iron ore and steel group Metalloinvest Wednesday reported iron ore shipments rose 13% in 2015 to 18.3 million mt for Russian customers such as MMK, NLMK, Severstal and Evraz.
Its European market share fell to 5.2 million mt, with sales in Asia including China at 2.7 million mt, while the Middle East took 1 million mt, down 10.1% on 2014 volumes, it said in its earnings statement.
Iron ore pellets sales totaled $855 million in 2015, yielding an average sales price of $36/mt on full-year production volumes.
The company did not report sales volumes for pellets, which grade between 63%-67% Fe after modernization helping achieve lower impurities.
The group saw 5% increase in pellet production in 2015 to 23.8 million mt as Pellet Plant #3 launched at MGOK and benefiting from a scheduled decrease in duration of maintenance.
The company's HBI/DRI production of 5.4 million mt saw a 3.1% increase aided by partial modernization at HBI-2 in 2014 and with work ongoing for the new HBI-3 module undertaken in 2015.
