ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih cuts supplies to Russia to 1%, develops own metal center chain in Ukraine
KYIV. Oct 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) - ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (Kryvy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region) currently sells very few of its metal products to Russia, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih CEO Paramjit Kahlon said at a press conference entitled "ArcelorMittal: Ten Years of Sustainable Development in Ukraine" held at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Wednesday.
He said that supplies to Russia total less than 1%.
"We sell very small volumes in Russia – less than 1%, these are angle bars," he said.
Commenting on sales in general, Kahlon said that when the enterprise was bought in 2005, 70% of its products were exported. At present, the share of exports is 86%, and around 14% of the products are sold on the domestic market.
"After the acquisition of the enterprise we faced a task to find markets to sell around 5 million tonnes of metal products. Thanks to the fact that we are part of the largest metal company in the world, we've managed to find markets to sell ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih's products. Now we're supplying products to 62 countries and to the Ukrainian market," he said.
He said that the company is creating its own metal center chain in Ukraine to boost sales.
Kahlon said in late April 2015 that since December 2014, the Russian market has been almost closed to the company: in Q3 2014 the company’s supplies to Russia totaled 55,000-60,000 tonnes a month, and then they fell to 35,000-40,000 tonnes. "Now we're almost not selling [products to Russia]," he said.
Deputy CEO for Marketing and Sales Virinder Bahadur Garg said in an interview with the Metalurg corporate publication on October 23 that the Ukrainian sales market remains a top-priority for ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih. ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is making efforts to retain its traditional markets, including by retaining its share of the Ukrainian market, and is also boosting its presence in European and the Persian Gulf countries and is entering new markets.
"Unfortunately, at present, the metal product consumption rate on the Ukrainian market continues to fall. This happens due to several reasons. You know we stopped supplies to Donetsk region and Crimea. This is a large, industrial part of the country where we supplied large volumes of our own products. General long products consumption in Ukraine fell by 30% compared to the previous year. The growth of prices of energy and logistics play their role. Of course, this cannot but affect all us. Despite these difficulties, we're trying to retain our share of the Ukrainian market at the level of 2014," he said.
The company plans to expand its own metal products warehouse network, he said.