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Russia marks the Day of Current and Former Employees of the Mining and Metallurgical Complex on the third Sunday of July.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues.

This week marks a great and big holiday for almost 700,000 people, the Day of Current and Former Employees of the Mining and Metallurgical Complex of Russia. Please accept my wholehearted best wishes on your professional holiday, the upcoming Steelworker Day.

Our mining and metallurgical industry comprises major plants and mills, a robust scientific and technological base, and, of course, strong traditions and family dynasties. As I pointed out earlier, hundreds of thousands of highly skilled specialists – miners, blast furnace operators, steelmakers, blacksmiths, rolling masters, foundry workers and many others – work in this industry.

Friends,

Your hard work, which requires professionalism, perseverance and proper training, enjoys deserved respect and admiration. We are proud of your achievements, your weighty contribution to the national metallurgy, which is, without a doubt, strategically important for our entire country and building up the industrial capacity, implementing major infrastructure projects, equipping the army and navy, in a word, helping the national economy grow, and ensuring reliable defence and security of our Motherland.

Thanks to your work, the mining and metallurgical complex continues to make strides. According to experts, last year Russia ranked first internationally in terms of high-grade nickel output, second in terms of aluminium production, third in titanium production and fifth in steel output.

Importantly, the industry is becoming increasingly high-tech every year. Advanced engineering and production solutions are being widely implemented, and unique alloys are being created which help create materials with special properties. All of that opens up new broad opportunities in a variety of spheres ranging from aviation and cosmonautics to electronics and medicine.

Certainly, we must continue the extensive modernisation of our production facilities, prioritising the use of our own domestic technologies and equipment.

It is important to note that despite facing sanctions, the industry is increasing investment in new and promising projects. Some of these initiatives are being realised with state support, facilitated through mechanisms of the cluster investment platform.

We will continue to utilise proven mechanisms and introduce new effective tools. Additionally, we plan to generate additional demand for industrial products through the implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Environmental safety concerns are receiving heightened attention from the industry. However, it must be acknowledged that numerous challenges remain in this area. It is crucial that metallurgical enterprises shift towards modern technologies and equipment. To facilitate this transition, we are executing the Clean Air federal project. We expect manufacturers to fulfil their commitments to upgrade technologies and minimise environmental impact, thereby enhancing overall industry efficiency.

Certainly, we must enhance deep metal processing, expanding the production of high-tech metal products, and increasing the added value at domestic enterprises.

Today marks another significant milestone in the development of our country’s metallurgical industry as we inaugurate new production facilities in the Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Let me emphasise that there is still much to be done to restore and modernise the backbone metallurgical sector of the Donbass economy and to improve the working conditions of its employees. Numerous tasks remain, and we will gradually address these challenges, integrating the industry into Russia’s unified economic space.

It is worth noting that over the past year, from 2022 to 2023, the production of metal products in the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics has increased by 30 percent. This is a very promising indicator.

In conclusion, I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone involved in our country’s mining and metallurgical complex for their dedication and outstanding achievements.

I wish you continued success, good health, and prosperity for you and your loved ones.

Let’s get to work. Mr Alikhanov, please go ahead.

Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov: Good afternoon, Mr President, colleagues.

I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to everyone employed in metallurgy – the backbone industry of our economy – on the occasion of their professional holiday. Last year, it reached the almost record-high output due to high activity in the consumption sectors. In ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, the growth was driven by the construction sector with the state programmes to upgrade housing and utilities services, to build gas infrastructure, and to expand housing and road construction. In industry, the increase in output was driven by higher production volumes in shipbuilding, and automotive and railway engineering.

Since earlier this year, we have seen a minor decrease in liquid steel output due to a decline in rolled steel exports. At the same time, the Government continues to systematically create a strong demand for steel products on the domestic market by implementing major infrastructure construction projects, including the ones included in new national projects.

Considering this, steel companies are boosting investment in creating innovative high-tech production facilities and the greening of existing facilities. We provide them with financial support under the above cluster investment platform. This mechanism is used to implement projects to produce stainless steel rolled products, semi-finished products made of heat-resistant steel, and oversize packages for the nuclear industry. We co-finance similar projects by offsetting the R&D costs. This format is used to develop technology for the production of ball bearing and special medical steels, bimetallic sheet steel for the oil and gas machine building industry, and innovative products for the construction and automotive industries.

A number of projects are eligible for tax incentives in the amount of 400 billion rubles under special investment contracts, including contracts to create low carbon footprint production facilities. In turn, the Industrial Development Fund issues low-cost loans used for greening certain facilities at MMK or Severstal.

I would also like to thank the steel companies for the extensive amount of work they are doing for the defence industry. Despite the sanctions, our colleagues have increased the volume of output shipped to the defence industry many times over. To do so, overlapping production facilities have been set up to produce a wide range of products, including aluminium semi-finished products, high-strength rolled products and, in particular, special alloys. This is the goal that you, Mr President, have set in the approved strategy for expanding the industry.

We are specifically focusing on the revival of the Donbass metal industries. We have detailed plans for the restoration of, investment in and integration of the region’s facilities into nationwide cooperation chains. The key facilities in the Southern mining and metals cluster have already been re-launched, including the plants in Alchevsk and Yenakievo, the Makeyevka coke and chemical plant, the Komsomolskoye mining company, the Stakhanov ferroalloy plant, and Yasinovka coke and chemical plant. Last year, these facilities increased output by 30 percent, to 2.5 million tonnes, and they plan to achieve similar results this year.

This will be facilitated, among other things, by exempting them from excise duty on liquid steel and mineral extraction tax on iron ore; the programme has now been approved for all miners and smelters in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.

I would like to note that all plants in these regions are now taking advantage of uninterrupted supplies of raw materials. The restored coke plants in the DPR and LPR fully meet the needs of local smelters.

Russia’s non-ferrous metallurgy fully meets the domestic demand for its key products, and a large volume of goods is being exported. Companies continue to invest in upstream mineral development, in end product manufacturing, as well as in cutting emissions. Ambitious and capital-intensive projects are being implemented today to develop the Udokan and Malmyzhskoye copper deposits.

Mr President, in response to your instructions, we are now preparing to begin the construction of an alumina refinery in the Leningrad Region and the Taishet anode plant; a large programme for the eco-friendly modernisation of the four largest aluminium smelters is to be launched soon.

Norilsk Nickel is implementing a similar programme at its facilities. Thanks to this, the company expects to nearly halve sulphur dioxide emissions at the Nadezhda smelter as early as next year.

Russia remains world leader in titanium production. In spite of the sanctions, VSMPO-AVISMA now has ilmenite concentrate supplied from friendly countries.

At the beginning of this year, the first stage of the Tugansky GOK plant went on stream. The facility, which uses domestic equipment, has substituted about 7 percent of ilmenite imports. The second stage of the project is underway, and by 2030, the plan is to boost output to a level that will cover about half of Russia’s demand for this ore.

We have an even more ambitious target for rare and rare-earth metals production. In previous years, Russian miners developed a technology for processing complex ores and extracting these metals. Today, Rosatom’s investment projects (the Lovozersky GOK and the Solikamsk magnesium plant), Rostec and Highland Gold’s projects (the Tyrnyauz tungsten-molybdenum and Tastyg lithium deposits, and the Yermakovskoye beryllium deposit) are being prepared for launch with government support.

Private companies are making a contribution, too. Skygrad Group is planning to process phosphogypsum dumps in Voskresensk, and Norilsk Nickel has teamed up with Rosatom to develop the Polar Lithium project.

Thanks to such projects, we expect to increase the output of rare and rare-earth metals eightfold by 2030 and, accordingly, to reduce the share of imports to 15 percent of our consumption. This is also part of the new national projects for technological leadership.

I am confident that the industry will successfully achieve all of these objectives, which are important for the national economy.

Once again, I wish a happy Steelworker Day and all the very best to all metallurgists, and I would like to thank you, Mr President, for your attention to the development of the national metals industry.

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First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov: First, I would like to also offer my greetings to the metal workers. Despite the sanctions, the industry persists. It has quite quickly adapted to the conditions we were put in back in 2022.

At the end of 2022, you instructed us to elaborate the Metallurgy Development Strategy. Now we fully comply with current geopolitical realities, global trends in metallurgy, and the task of achieving technological sovereignty of the Russian industry. All these factors dictate the need to step up our work on new investment projects.

Today, a lot of them have been planned in the industry as a whole, worth 3.5 trillion rubles. The projects are aimed at expanding capacity, updating fixed assets, developing the following stages, increasing the level of automation, and reducing the man-made impact on the environment.

The task aligned with that also concerns the resource independence of the industry step by step. In order to do that, special focus in ferrous metallurgy will be placed on the development of deposits of manganese and chromium ores; in non-ferrous metallurgy, focus will be on tin; priority in aluminum will be given to bauxite and nepheline. The same applies to ilmenite as the main raw material for titanium production.

Of course, maximum involvement of rare and rare earth metals in the economy is a very important area. Mr Alikhanov has mentioned several projects in this area, but it is important that oxides and concentrates are used as much as possible in all processing industries.

I would also like to use this occasion to thank you, Mr President, for the attention you pay to the processing industry and metallurgy as a base industry. I am confident that we can handle all the tasks the industry is facing, and they will all be implemented.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: I have already said where Russia is placed in the world ranking of the production of certain types of metallurgic products, but steel production is definitely a key indicator. In 2023, steel production in Russia increased by 6.3 percent, or by 4.5 million tonnes, compared with the volume in 2022, with a total of 76 million tonnes of steel produced.

This is an excellent indicator that shows that overall, the metal industry in Russia is developing successfully. The metallurgical production index amounted to 103.3 percent at the end of 2023. This is a confident, good indicator, and good, confident growth.

I congratulate everyone once again on the upcoming holiday. There are still a few days left before it, with several work days ahead, but I want to congratulate everyone on Metallurgist’s Day and thank you again for the results of your work and wish you success.

Best regards.