[Ferro-Alloys.com]Industrial Metallurgical Holding (IMH), one of the world’s leading exporters of merchant pig iron and the leading merchant coke producer in Russia, reports its operational results for FY 2017.

Coking coal mined by IMH Coal division in 2017 increased to 2.83 million tons, by 28% YoY, and accounted for the absolute record for the company’s history. This increase was achieved due to the new Tikhova mine and the second stage of Butovskaya mine commissioning in May 2017. That is the result of company’s raw material self-sufficiency increase strategy implementation.

Coking coal concentrate production decreased by 6%, to 2.47 million tons. This decline occurred due to the processing of new grades of coal from newly commissioned mines and Berezovskaya processing plant operations reconfiguration.

Coke output in 2017 amounted to 2.7 million tons (-5%). The slight decrease in production is attributed to higher coke quality and correlating coke batteries production time extension.

Iron ore mining at Kombinat KMAruda amounted to 5.1 million tons, up by 77 thousand tons YoY. This result was the record-high in the company’s entire history. Iron ore concentrate production amounted to 2.25 million tons.

Tulachermet produced 2.28 million tons of pig iron in 2017 (+3%). This is the best result achieved by the plant in its history while operating with two blast furnaces. **Article from Internet for reference only