Russia’s metallurgical companies have felt the impact of the global market changes that first occurred in August 2011: the Russian holdings’ steel output went drastically down in September and reached the year’s lowest point. The official reason for the plunging output is said to lie in the seasonal consumption variations, Kommersant reports.

According to Metal Courier’s statistics, Russia’s total steel production dropped by nearly 5% in September 2011 compared to August 2011 and came to 5.4m tons. In comparison with January, the output declined by 8.6% and in comparison with over 6m tons of steel in March (the year’s best month in this respect), the decrease came very close to 10%. In April through August 2011, the Russian metallurgical enterprises produced between 5.7m and 5.8m tons of steel a month.

Metal Courier reports that the steel output of Evraz Group enterprises (West Siberian, Nizhniy Tagil, and Novokuznetsk Iron & Steel Works) dropped by 5.7% in September and came to 985,000 tons. Severstal produced 906,000 tons, which was 9.3% less than in the previous month. The steel output of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works decreased by 11.9%. Metalloinvest’s enterprises – Oskolsky Iron & Steel Works and Ural Steel – produced 2.8% less still in September 2011 (478,000 tons).