Photo by: Duane Daws
Vertically integrated steel and vanadium slag producer Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium, which has filed for voluntary business rescue proceedings, produced 149 000 t of crude steel in the quarter ended March 31, a 6.9% decrease on the 160 000 t produced in the quarter ended December 31, 2014.
Production was also 0.3% lower than the 150 000 t of crude steel produced in the March 2014 quarter.
“In March, the situation in the local market became difficult, nullifying the positive effect of the turnaround plan which Evraz Highveld's management team had been implementing,” the steel producer’s parent company Evraz outlined in a results statement on Monday.
Meanwhile, vanadium slag production by the Evraz group dropped 2% in the first quarter of the year compared with the prior quarter, owing largely to a 12% drop in South African output on the back of reduced steel production at Evraz Highveld.
Evraz Highveld announced last week that it had initiated voluntary business rescue proceedings, citing an inability to meet its short-term obligations as a result of historical operating difficulties and sustained financial losses within a capital-constrained operating environment.