[miningmx.com] — Highveld Steel and Vanadium, South Africa’s second-largest steel producer, on Thursday reported a 19.1% increase in year-on-year (y/y) production in the second quarter of 2010.
The company reported hot metal output of 173,862 tonnes for the second
quarter of 2010, compared to 146,013 tonnes in the same quarter the year before.
Quarter-on-quarter (q/q) hot metal production was 3.7% lower from 180,456 tonnes in the first quarter of 2010.
Continuously cast block production reached 175,785 tonnes in the second
quarter, which is 19.5% higher than the 147,072 tonnes produced in the same
quarter of 2009 but 2.2% lower than the 179,718 tonnes produced in the first
quarter.
Production of sections was 58.3% higher y/y to 56,484 tonnes while
production of plates was up 50.9% to 50,625 tonnes and coil production climbed
63.2% to 34,317 tonnes in the second quarter.
Improvements were also seen in vanadium production with vanadium slag
output up 47.8% y/y to 3.65 million kilograms.
Ferrovanadium production grew 25.3% to 1.39 million kilograms.
The average selling price of steel was 36.9% higher at $713 per tonne during the quarter while the average selling price of vanadium slag was 100% higher at $7 a kilogram and ferrovanadium fetched $30 a kilogram, an improvement of 57.9%.
At 14:20 shares in Highveld Steel were 1.18% or 99 cents lower at R83 on the JSE.
