Steel plant acquired by Mechel OAO

Mechel OAO, a Russian mining and metals company, announced the acquisition of Laminorul Braila metallurgical plant located in Romania.

Mechel acquired 100 percent of the shares of Donau Commodities SRL, which holds 87.9 percent of the shares of Laminorul SA, a steel plant located in Braila, Romania, for a consideration of 9.4 million Euros subject to a final price adjustment.

Laminorul Braila plant is located in southeast Romania in close proximity to Braila ports. The ports’ facilities allow for embarkation onto ships with cargo capacity of up to five thousand tons. Constantsa international port (Black Sea) is also located nearby, thus providing convenient logistics for the plant.

The plant’s main production facilities include two rolling mills with total capacity of over 380 thousand tons per year. Rolling mills manufacture structural shapes of different types: beams, channel bars, equal and unequal angles for industrial, civil and machinery construction. This is the only plant in Romania manufacturing special profile (bulb bar) which is used in shipbuilding. All product types have European quality certificates. Bulb bars manufactured by the plant are certified by the international sea registers such as DNV, BV, LR, ABS, GL and the Russian Sea Register.

In 2009 the plant manufactured more than 50 thousand tons of structural shapes. 65 percent of the plant’s products are delivered to Western and Eastern Europe and the rest is consumed at the domestic market of Romania. Laminorul Braila is sourced with billets supplied by Mechel Targoviste steel plant, one more Romanian subsidiary of Mechel. The plant employs more than 570 people.