Highveld production heats up

[miningmx.com] –HIGHVELD Steel and Vanadium, South Africa’s second-largest steel producer, has reported a 31.4% increase in its quarter-on-quarter (q/q) hot metal production.

The company reported hot metal output of 202 441 tonnes for the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 154 011 tonnes from the fourth quarter of 2008.

At 202 441 tonnes fourth quarter production is 8.2% up on the 187 091 tonnes produced in the third quarter of 2009.

Continuously cast block production reached 206 084 tonnes, which is 22.3% higher than the 168 554 tonnes produced in the same quarter of last year and 4.6% up on the 197 048 tonnes produced in the previous quarter.

Production of sections rose 11.6% q/q to 68 398 tonnes, production of plates improved by 15.9% q/q to 53 495 tonnes and coil production climbed 90.9% q/q to 53 398 tonnes in the quarter.

Improvements were also seen in vanadium production with vanadium slag output up 19.1% q/q to 3.96 million tonnes while internal consumption was up 4.5% q/q to 3.15 million tonnes.

Ferrovanadium production grew by 24.2% q/q to 1.39 million tonnes in the fourth quarter.