Mr. A. Pogozhev, Severstal Production Director, said, two lines producing coated rolled products have achieved the above production volume - the Hot-dip Galvanizing Line and the Continuous Hot-dip Aluminum Coating Line, the latter producing the major volume of galvanized steel products due to its revamp project realization.

The effect following the two steps of the 2003-2004 reconstruction, surpassed the expected design index of the line capacity growth and turned out to be 320 instead of 290 kt. As Mr. A.Pogozhev reported, "the output of galvanized steel products in 2004 made 387.0 kt, which surpassed the actual output of 2003 by 100 kt".

The increase in shipment volumes was achieved also due to the new qualitative characteristics, which raised the demand for the galvanized steel products. In the year of 2004, the equipment for producing galvanized steel products with excellent anticorrosion properties was introduced. The additional actions also provided the possibility of production of steel products with no crystallization patterns. Such high coating quality guarantees excellent consumer properties of the products after the next conversion - manufacture of steel with polymeric  coatings. In order to improve services provided to the whole range of the galvanized sheet consumers, we accomplished one more action, intended for anticorrosion treatment of the steel by application of a uniform protection layer upon the whole surface of the steel product.

In 2005, the equipment within the framework of the third stage of reconstruction under the contract with Belgian company CMI will be installed. This equipment will permit to introduce the new technology of chromatizing in process solution. This new technology in combination with the new composition of the coating will guarantee new qualitative characteristics of the steel products.

Realization of actions of the third stage of Continuous Hot-dip Aluminum Coating Line reconstruction will facilitate further improvement of quality of the galvanized steel rolled products, intended for civil construction industry, automotive industry and manufacture of white household appliances. According to the forecasts, it will cause the increase of demand for these products.

Mr. A.Pogozhev said that according to the preliminary plans of the company, the volume of galvanized sheet shipment in 2005 would make 595 kt.