Mechel coking coal concentrate sales drop 6% in Q3

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The calculations were based on results published by the company on Thursday November 7.

The fall in the coal concentrate sales was due to “weaker domestic demand, which was partly compensated by increased export volumes”, Mechel said.

The sales were also affected by the shipping delays to Asia due to flooding in the Russia’s Far East.

Earlier this year, the area around the Amur River in eastern Siberia suffered the worst flooding in more than a century, causing damage estimated at $1 billion.

One of Russia’s major coking coal producers, Mechel, sold 1.12 million tonnes of pulverized coal injection (PCI) material in the third quarter, up by 79% quarter-on-quarter.

The rise of PCI sales in the first nine months of 2013 was due to increased supplies to the Asia-Pacific region, the UK and Belgium, Mechel said.

Anthracite sales to third parties were down by 24% quarter-on-quarter at 417,000 tonnes, as the company’s European clients “partly replaced anthracites with PCI”, Mechel said.

The miner’s raw coal production was flat quarter-on-quarter over the quarter at 7 million tonnes.

Third-party sales were calculated by Steel First as Mechel only provides data on total sales and internal sales to its own enterprises.

Year-on-year comparisons were not possible as Mechel only published full nine-months results in 2012.