In the first quarter of 2010, OOO NLMK-Sort that now comprises all of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works’ section iron divisions raised its home market sales to 277,000 tons of metal goods, which was 28% better than in the first quarter of 2009, the company’s press officer reports.

The company’s domestic customers bought 225,000 tons of reinforcing bars, which was 26% more than in January-March 2009. Also, they bought about 8,000 tons of wire rods, which exceeded the figures for the first quarter of 2009 by 27%, and over 40,000 tons of metal goods, which exceeded the figures for the first quarter of 2009 by 47%. Finally, Vtorchermet-NLMK delivered 407,000 tons of processed scrap metal to its customers in January-March 2010, which was 81% better than a year earlier.

All in all, the company sold 27,000 tons of stock steel on both the domestic and the foreign markets in January-March 2010, which fell short of the figures for a year earlier by 30%. In addition, OOO NLMK-Sort sold some 323,000 tons of metal goods (including 235,000 tons of reinforcing bars), 2,130 tons of wire rods, and 48,000 tons of metalware. This was, respectively, 1.7%, 1%, and 34% more than in January-March 2009.

Now NLMK-Sort’s key enterprises are Sverdlovsk Region-based Nizhneserginskiy metal goods plant and Ural precious alloys plant.