OREANDA-NEWS. March 1, 2010. According to the Ukrainian agency Metal – Currier, the domestic steelmakers produced 2.35mn tones of crude steel in February, which is 14% less than during the preceding month. The most significant deterioration in the output performance was registered by Dniprovskyi Steelworks and “ArselorMittal Kryvyi Rih” .

The management of the steel companies tries to explain this fact by the fewer number of the working days in February and adverse weather conditions (because of the longer time to defrost the raw materials due to low temperatures in February). But steelmakers are still burdened with the problems of coke deficit (we have written about this fact earlier) and the lack of the working capital due to delays with refunding of VAT to exporters. Millennium Capital sees this news as negative, because the steelmakers may miss the good chance to overcome the current crisis caused by these problems, unless they made use of the current growth in demand for their products.