OREANDA-NEWS. Mechel JSC (NYSE: MTL), a leading Russian mining and steel group, today announced financial results for the full year 2012.

Evgeny Mikhel, Mechel JSC ’s Chief Executive Officer, commented on the 2012 financial results: "Last year the Group operated as key markets for mining products continued to weaken against a background of general world economic volatility. This is reflected in the worsening of the financial results of our main activities, as well as the need to book reserves and make several significant writeoffs. At the same time, with respect to most of our key operational indicators Mechel demonstrated positive dynamics in 2012. Last year we also managed to do much for further improvement going forward. It is important that despite negative pricing trends our efforts at optimizing our sales and product mix as well as working capital management lead to a record operating cash flow of more than USD 1.3 bn, which allowed to finance our entire CAPEX at the same time repaying some debt.

"In line with the renewed strategy, aimed at deleveraging, we have already sold a large number of those assets that had the most negative impact on our financial results. We continue talks on selling the remainder of our non-strategic assets. We were also successful in improving our debt structure and continue working on it by decreasing the share of short-term debt. We are sure that the steps we are undertaking with a focus on maximizing shareholder value, will have their positive effect very shortly."