Posted on 27 Aug 2025
Hard times are coming for the Russian metallurgy in 2025, because the industry's indicators continue to decline due to the fact that supply greatly exceeds demand for steel products of enterprises, says vice president for IT at Evraz, Artem Natrusov.
“Other problems are low world prices for metal and Chinese companies, who are posing serious competition to Russia’s ones,” he said in an interview with Russia-based CNews. “Steel production in China has been increasing over the past decades, and over the past two years it has become an exporter, but China will also have to eventually reduce its capacity. The economy is cyclical, and cycles replace each other approximately every five years. We are currently at the bottom of such a macrocycle.”
According to him, while market protectionism remains, the least efficient production facilities will have to close all over the world. “Only the lowest cost companies will survive and that is what we must fight for,” Natrusov claims.
“There are also other macro factors that we cannot influence - the ruble exchange rate of RUB 80 versus $1 and below, although we really liked the rate of RUB 100, which supported our exports, since our cost price would be lower in dollars,” he said. “We also cannot influence the financing rate, which is high for the entire industry. Russian metallurgists do not receive additional marginal income as a result of increasing volumes, as markets are shrinking.”
“Therefore, the entire focus now is on reducing costs, and in this area, in 2024 alone, we [Evraz] have implemented more than 100 projects, ultimately receiving RUB 5.8 billion ($72 million) in direct economic effect,” he noted.
Earlier, Severstal noted that steel demand recovery in Russia is possible if the key interest rate of the Central Bank of Russia is reduced to 12% [currently it is 18%] (see Kallanish passim). However, steel capacity closures could also occur if the situation does not improve, it concluded.
At the same time, competition from imports is growing in the market, in particular, from Kazakhstan and China, Severstal said. In such conditions, the company is analysing the possibility of Russia enforcing anti-dumping measures to stabilise the situation.
Source:Kallanish
