Russia’s Novolipetsk Steel, or NLMK, will keep its production volumes, despite Western sanctions against Russia, Vladimir Lisin, the chairman of the NLMK board of directors, told journalists.
He said that local authorities of a number of cities in Western European countries had asked the European Commission “to be more delicate to Russian steel in conditions of the sanction regime,” Itar Tass reported.
This position had been heeded and the company’s Western partners pledged to “try not to make wrong steps against NLMK,” Lisin said.
In his words, the local authorities in those cities are afraid that in case of the worst scenario “several thousands of people in Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Italy linked with NLMK activities will lose their jobs.”
Apart from that, NLMK has increased its domestic sales to 47% of its overall output, he noted. In the past ten years, the steel maker has diversified its production. These measures, according to Lisin, will help the metallurgy giant keep on running loss-free.
On Friday, NLMK marked the 80th anniversary of the first iron casting. Today, NLMK is Russia’s biggest steel maker and one of the most efficient metallurgical companies in the world. It is a central unit of an international production chain with assets located in Russia, the European Union and the United States. Production at NLMK’s Lipetsk facility exceeds 12 million tons a year, or 18% of Russia’s entire steel output.
Tit-for-Tat
At a McDonald’s in a provincial town northwest of here, health inspectors in lab coats swooped in for a surprise check, clipboards, test tubes and cotton swabs in hand. After finishing, they promptly filed a lawsuit to stop the fast food chain from selling certain items across all of Russia.
The offense: The calorie counts on the cheeseburgers, Filet-O-Fish, berry ice cream and other items did not match the amount listed on the paper tray liners.
As geopolitical tensions continue to simmer over the Ukraine crisis, Russia isn’t just a perilous place to do business. It is entirely unpredictable.
Some companies like Exxon Mobil and the energy services firm Schlumberger have been ensnared by the Western sanctions intended to cut into core Russian industries. Others such as Visa and Conde Nast have been hit by the tit-for-tat response by the Kremlin.
Iconic American brands are proving useful for political target practice.
