A ‘strong free cashflow performance’ from EVRAZ

Russian steelmaker EVRAZ has announced its H1 2014 unaudited interim results and CEO Alexander Frolov is heralding a strong free cashflow performance of US$444 million for the period, enabling the company to decrease its net debt to US$6.09 billion.

"Our net leverage consequently declined from 3.6x at the year-end to 3.1x, thereby strengthening the company's financial position," he said.

Looking at the figures in more depth, the company's consolidated revenue was down 7% from US$7.3 billion to US$6.8 billion, but profits from operations were up 105% at US$297 million while consolidated EBITDA rose 17% to US$1.08 billion. The company recorded a net profit of US$1 million compared to a loss in 2013 of US$146 million.

Capex was down 26% to US$365 million and the company reduced net debt by 7% to US$6.09 billion.

Where capital investments were concerned EVRAZ commenced production at its Caspian Steel rolling mill in Kazakhstan and continued to develop the Mezhegey coking coal deposit. The company continued its EVRAZ ZSMK PCI project (hot tests commenced in July) and, following the launch in February 2013, fully ramped up its Yerunakovskaya Vlll coking coal mine.

Where crude steel was concerned, EVRAZ produced 7.8Mt, down 4% on the same period last year, and sold 7.7Mt of steel products to external customers, down 1% on last year.

The company's iron ore revenues were down 27% at US$665 million and raw coking coal production was up 7% at 9.8Mt, including 4.4Mt from the Raspadskaya Coal Company, of which Sergey Stepanov was appointed general director on 1 July 2014.