The first move was to approve a construction site in the woodlands on the left bank of the Voronezh River in the vicinity of Lipetsk and roughly shape a plan to build a company town (a so-called ‘Socialist town’) to house 250,000 people. The project outlined limits of the town and development of its transport infrastructure. Since the river banks were fairly high, metro lines were to be built in both directions.

In mid-October, the Lipetskstroy administration started to function in an official capacity. P. Alexandrov was appointed interim head.

From P. Alexandrov’s memoirs: “... once it had been set up, Lipetskstroy was housed in a building in Lenin Street which accommodated all its facilities and nearly all its employees... The hostel was set up in the same building too. We all lived there, which allowed us to work day and night. ... in early 1931 I asked to be replaced by another person, someone stronger and more experienced in steelmaking.”

Rock drilling equipment was installed at the Studenovskoye deposit site in 1930. Manual blast-hole drilling was replaced by air-drilling using rock drills. A compressor plant was also built.

According to the “On the Iron and Steel Industry” decree issued by the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, it was proposed that construction of the Lipetsk cast iron plant supplied by the Lipetsk District’s ore deposits would begin in 1931.

Construction work was undertaken using shovels, hand-barrows, wheel-barrows and diggers. These tools were instrumental to completing a lot of heavy earth work to break the ground for building blast furnaces, stoves, a cogeneration plant building and ore stock yard. A metal plate featuring the name of the blast furnace and the year of construction start was embedded under the foundation. Concrete slabs were installed for blast furnace No. 1 on 26 September 1931.

Although in capacity terms the soon-to-be Novolipetsk plant did lag behind its bigger brothers – the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) and the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant, its design incorporated state-of-the-art technologies of Russian steelmaking. The main blast furnace shop included two furnaces, each 930 cubic metres in volume. Their total design capacity was 500,000 tonnes of pig iron per year. Remarkably, the blast furnace shop didn’t employ workers in roles such as cager, roller, charger or ditcher. These jobs were simply redundant due to the high level of mechanisation. For example, furnace charging and ore storage facilities were to be fully mechanised.

Construction of the plant was ahead of schedule.

Hand haulage at the Studenovskoye deposit was replaced with horse haulage in 1932. Maria Shchukina was the first to work as a horse driver. Later on, small locomotives arrived.

Komsomol members of Energostroy, the organisation which built the cogeneration plant, blower house, water supply and sewer systems of the plant, suggested issuing “earthwork bonds”. The idea was as follows. Before the first frost hits, construction workers had to complete earthwork operations, removing 40,000 cubic metres of ground. The diggers were unable to do it alone. To help this cause, “five CBM bonds” were issued. Hundreds of Lipetsk residents responded to the call for help. The secretary of the party cell at the cogeneration plant, where work was in progress, collected a heap of slips recording cubic metres of ground removed under the loan initiative. The “earthwork loan” was floated over 6 weeks. This was a substantial support for workers, which enabled them to speed up the construction of the cogeneration plant. A prize drawing was held for bond holders in early November, and the lucky ones won bicycles, suits, soap or portable gramophones.

On 29 October 1934, the plant’s heart started beating as the 24,000 kWh combined heat and power plant was put in operation.

Hand charging of blast furnace No. 1 with coal, firewood and coke was completed at noon on 1 November.

On 3 November, the whole plant was launched for a test run, by order of Yan Berzin. Its operation lasted for 48 hours.

The first blast furnace was commissioned on 6 November.

The officials in charge of the construction project and an authorised representative of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry reported: “On 6 November at 3:35 p.m., the Lipetskstroy blast furnace was blown in. The 115^th blast furnace in the USSR was put in operation. We are mobilising all our efforts for successful utilisation of the highly-mechanised blast furnace.”

The furnace produced its first melt, 64 tonnes of pig iron, at 7:30 p.m. on 7 November 1934. This milestone operation was carried out by blast furnace keepers I. Shmidt (who had previously launched four furnaces at Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works), P. Liznev and N. Milyushin, gas watchmen N. Sochnev and I. Ivanisov, pig-casting operator P. Kharkov, plumber S. Krushinsky, and engineers G. Shabanov and S. Udovitsky.

After the blast furnace had been commissioned, Yan Berzin proceeded to develop the steelmaking plant. In Lipetsk, he was always in the thick of it: served as a member of the Presidium of the Lipetsk City Council, held public meetings with Lipetsk people, welcomed legendary polar explorers, pilots Mikhail Vodopyanov and SS Chelyuskin radio man Ernst Krenkel on 5 July 1934, when they visited the city. Berzin was well-known in Voronezh, the capital of the region. During the First Regional Congress of Soviets in January 1935, he became a member of the Executive Committee of the Regional Soviet and was elected as a delegate to the All-Russian and All-Union Congresses of Soviets.

NLMZ and Lipetskstroy construction site. 1934. Installation of a dust catcher in BF-1.

Four elevators, one for each site, were built in 1934 at the Studenovskoye deposit. They were used to lift 1.5-tonne cars with fluxing limestone from the quarry to the ramps. A railway track was laid to the ramps.

A year after the first blast furnace had been put in operation, on 4 November 1935, blast furnace No. 2 produced its first pig iron. Cast iron was the plant’s primary product before the war. It was supplied to machine-building plants in the Central and Southern parts of the country. NLMZ met its 1935 target displaying the following performance: blast furnace No. 1 produced 217,206 tonnes of pig iron, or 100.6% of the target, while blast furnace No. 2 produced 30,553 tonnes, or 101.8% of the target.

In autumn 1935, the Stakhanovite movement spread across the entire country, initiated by local resident Alexei Stakhanov. The shock worker movement at NLMZ was rapidly growing. In November 1935, the plant had 194 Stakhanovites. A month later, there were already 432 of them.

The Stakhanovite movement was initiated by Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner at the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine in Kadievka (now Stakhanov), who, on the night of 30–31 August 1935, mined 107 tonnes of coal in 5 hours and 45 minutes, with a standard mining quota of 7 tonnes.

Stakhanov was able to demonstrate this sensational performance by switching from the individual approach to the work of the miners that was previously used to a teamwork approach with task sharing. Alexei used only a jackhammer to mine, followed closely by two other miners who widened the coal stall and strengthened its walls.

Encouraged by the propaganda and enjoying financial support from the Communist Party of the USSR, the Stakhanovite movement shortly swept through all industries; transport, construction, agriculture and others; spreading across the entire country.

Stakhanovite shifts

In 1935, operation at NLMZ was totally based on Stakhanovite shifts which lasted for between one and five days. In their reports and statements the shock workers said that they were “paving the way, discovering untapped reserves for transition to Stakhanovite months and conversion of the whole plant into a Stakhanovite facility.”

600 Stakhanovites worked at the plant by 1935. NLMZ met its 1935 target, displaying the following performance: blast furnace No. 1 produced 217,206 tonnes of pig iron, or 100.6% of the target, while blast furnace No. 2 produced 30,553 tonnes, or 101.8% of the target.

The subsidy was reduced by 1,468,000 rubles over 11 months, instead of the initial figure of 1,300,000 rubles specified in the annual commitment (from the report on achievements of plant personnel presented to the Voronezh Regional Committee of the AUCP(b) after the gathering of NLMZ shock workers and Stakhanovites).

In late 1936, the plant was subsidy-independent, having made savings of 5,579,000 rubles in production and 1,755,000 rubles due to product quality.

1,200 workers, engineers and white-collar employees were covered by the technical training programme. By the new academic year, the plant built a secondary school for 880 children, a playground for 40 children, a health clinic, a nursery and a few dozen apartments for the plant’s top Stakhanovites.

However, Berzin never had the chance to implement these plans. A warrant for his arrest was issued on 24 October 1937. He was arrested on charges brought by the so-called ’Stalin’s Shooting Lists‘, so the outcome of the investigation, the trial and verdict were all predetermined. NLMZ’s first director was executed by firing squad on 14 April 1938, the day the sentence was read by a commission of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, a so-called “NKVD Troika”.

On 14 May 1957, Berzin was fully posthumously rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the USSR, and a street in Lipetsk was named after him.

The trade union committee of the plant became more active. In association with the mining committee of the Lipetsk iron ore mines, it organised a meeting of the Stakhanovites fr om both organisations where the participants discussed not only improvement of production output but also enhancement of ore, flux and pig iron quality. The Komsomol played a major role in achieving production targets and was actively involved in the plant’s social life.

The training facilities, which significantly enriched the operation of the plant, included a workschool, Stakhanovite courses, and classes wh ere the basics of technical safety were taught. The plant recruited young talent and encouraged steelworkers to improve their technical expertise. To support the people’s creative development and strengthen their motivation, the party promoted the best of them.

Over 40% of all workers were followers of the Stakhanovite movement in 1939. Throughout the year, the employees of three shops – the blast furnace shop, machine shop and cogeneration plant – were holders of the Transferable Red Banner of the plant.

Alongside the Stakhanovite movement’s development, the plant’s management paid special attention to optimisation and invention. Lipetsk steelworkers submitted more than 100 improvement ideas aimed at saving raw materials and fuel, and improving equipment operation.

The same year, the plant management started an all-out fight against illiteracy, as well as cultural and awareness-raising activities. These initiatives were supervised by Grigory Shapanov, Director of NLMZ. Later on, NLMZ personnel were awarded the Transferable Red Banner by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Iron and Steel Industry Union of the Centre held in April 1939, for successfully eliminating illiteracy.

The plant’s performance in 1934–1939, according to Order No. 394 dated 5 November 1939.

The plant produced more than 2 million tonnes of pig iron in five years, with 247,700 tonnes in 1935 and 468,000 tonnes in 1939, an 88% growth in output. In 1935, the cogeneration plant generated 18,380 kW of electricity and 80,000 kW, or 4.5 times more, in 1939.

About 172 million rubles was invested in the construction project over five years, with around 14 million rubles spent on building various public amenities. The number of Stakhanovites was 30.3% of the headcount in 1935 which grew to 42.6% in 1939. The number of shock workers increased from 22.6% to 27.1% between 1935 and 1939. The average wage of workers grew by 31% over five years, whilst labour productivity improved accordingly. The plant outstripped its October target by 107.3%.

As production output increased, the headcount and structure of plant personnel was ever changing. The number of workers went up although the proportion of engineering and white-collar personnel decreased:

In autumn 1941 the front line was moving closer to Lipetsk, and the situation became more complicated. A fighter unit was organised at the plant to prevent possible subversive actions. Fyodor Sergeev, Director of NLMZ, was appointed its Chief Officer, with Power Engineer Ivan Naumenko as his deputy. The men in the fighter unit patrolled the premises at night to prevent any sabotage by the enemy.

In October 1941, the government made the decision to evacuate the equipment of the blast furnace shop, cogeneration plant, water supply system, railway and machine shops of the plant to Chelyabinsk. On 28 October, Fyodor Sergeev, Director of NLMZ, issued Order No. 656 “On Evacuation of NLMZ” based on the decision of the government and a telegraph order from Ivan Tevosian, People’s Commissar of Ferrous Metallurgy.

It's hard to imagine what it took to dismantle in a few weeks what had been built over the years: two blast furnaces and the combined heat and power plant. Apart from the equipment, engineering drawings and technical documentation for all facilities and buildings had to be evacuated as well. 600 railway cars in 14 military trains arrived at Shagol station in Chelyabinsk Region in late December 1941. By that time, the German troops had already been defeated near Moscow.

In October 1941, the decision was made to evacuate the workers of the Studenovskoye deposit. They were delivered to the South Urals and employed at the Orsko-Khalilovsky Iron and Steel Works.

On 23 January 1942, after the Nazi army had been defeated near Moscow and Soviet troops had taken the offensive, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR decided to restore the Novolipetsk plant, by Resolution No. 78-310. The equipment was shipped back to Lipetsk and the installation began. In just three months the steelworkers, builders and residents of the city and nearby villages restored blast furnace No. 1 and the boiler and electrics of the cogeneration plant powered by the ‘Svobodny Sokol’ Lipetsk Iron Works required for furnace operation, in addition to the water supply, iron foundry, machine- and electrical shops.
When rebuilding the plant, everyone was trying to support the war effort as best they could. On 7 May 1942, Lipetskaya Kommuna newspaper wrote about an initiative of the NLMZ drama club which had put on a play, Patriots, and “decided to donate the 1,800 rubles collected at the performance to the fund for construction of the Lipetsk Bolshevik aircraft.”
By July 1942, NLMZ had been fully rebuilt and was ready for commissioning. While plant management was awaiting for the order to blow in blast furnace No. 1, the German army launched its attack on Stalingrad.
On 7–9 July total evacuation of all equipment, materials and the workforce was conducted for the second time. Overall, 553 railcars of equipment, 123 railcars of materials, 55 empty cars and 713 plant employees were evacuated. In January 1944, Novolipetsk cogeneration plant, now based in Chelyabinsk, generated its first power, and on 30 April blast furnace No. 1 produced its first pig iron. Following the evacuation to Chelyabinsk and mobilisation of plant workers, only 206 workers and 16 engineers remained at NLMZ, but it kept operating anyway. Using the remaining equipment, the personnel restored the foundry shop and machinery repair shop, launched the transport and electrical shops and the water supply system. There was a severe shortage of raw materials, fuel and power.

From the report of the NLMZ committee on fulfilment of defence orders for the army:
“... After the dismantling and evacuation had been completed, the plant received defence orders. The plant laboratory launched production of a whole range of goods (incendiary briquettes, fuse paper and matches). For the record, their manufacturing was new in terms of proportioning (recipe). The laboratory employees were quite proactive in this respect.
The machine shop gained a lot of experience manufacturing mortar-gun bases. Trench stoves have been in production for a few months. These goods have been continuously produced though a number of workers involved in the manufacturing process had been mobilised or evacuated. They were replaced with untrained personnel, mostly women... They promptly learned how to produce these complex items and were able to take the place of the men who had gone to the battlefield and the qualified workers who had been evacuated.”

In 1942 the Kumansky mine was built by miners of the Studenovskoye deposit in a bare and deserted field. They had to overcome incredible difficulties to dig the quarry and start producing refractory clay.

At the same time, NLMZ was instructed to master production of water gate valves and sirocco centrifugal fans. It was also essential to get the steelmaking process up and running. The iron foundry was shortly set up in the locomotive depot building, with an acid Bessemer converter launched.

As requested by the Voronezh Regional Committee of the Communist Party, the plant produced munitions and war supplies as well as goods for the home front: cases for F1 ‘limonka’ grenades, trench stoves, mortar-gun bases, anti-tank hedgehogs, brackets, horseshoes, shovels, axes, crowbars, clamps and so on. In addition, products for the agricultural sector were manufactured, including horse engines for threshing machines, spare parts for farming equipment, etc.

NLMZ employees initiated relief measures for the populations of the regions freed from German occupation. In their free time, they manufactured and shipped five railcars full of window and door frames, 300 iron stoves and kitchen stoves as well as about 1,000 crowbars and iron shovels to the liberated areas.

"Lipetskaya Kommuna" newspaper reported: “In early October, young boiler makers of the machine shop at Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works built the first front-line youth crew. There are five people in the crew, including two students of Workschool No. 3. The crew’s performance over the first ten days of work is estimated as 115% of the target. Burdin, a student at Workschool No. 3, met his personal target showing 230% performance.”

During the Great Patriotic War, workers, engineers and white-collar employees of NLMZ donated 225,000 rubles of their personal savings in order to obtain a tank column. The State Defence Committee sent two letters of appreciation to the plant’s personnel in recognition of their patriotic actions.

The employees supervised Hospital No. 1282 for four years, providing ongoing care for wounded soldiers and officers. The workers supplied the hospital with all kinds of furniture. The Komsomol organisation took charge of cultural activities. Young men and women spent their free time after hard work talking to the wounded, reading newspapers to them and organising amateur concerts. 110 women took turns staying at the hospital.

On 12 April 1944, Lipetskaya Kommuna newspaper reported: “The admirable movement of “three hundreders” (employees who fulfil triple their quota) is on the upswing. Comrade Makarkin, a turner, is one of the pioneers of this initiative. He regularly fulfils three times his quota. A team of boiler makers under Kolesnikov’s guidance took the lead in April. All members of this team turn out triple the regular quotas.”

According to the 1944 production target, the plant was expected to produce 2,500 tonnes of plumbing rebar, 600 sirocco fans, 113 horse drives for threshing machines and hundreds of spare parts for tractors and other farming equipment – products in the total amount of 8,187,000 rubles.

Yet, the 1945 production plan set already a more demanding target – to produce output worth 10.5 million rubles for the national economy.

The preparatory work started for reconstruction of the blast furnaces and the cogeneration plant. However, Voronezh TPP was unable to fully supply the plant’s power demand due to energy consumption restrictions, so the reconstruction issue remained up in the air. Besides, the equipment of the plant’s cogeneration plant was fully operational at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, and shipping it back was out of the question. Taking into account the plant’s power shortage, the People’s Commissariat of Ferrous Metallurgy decided to provide NLMZ with a turbine generator and three boilers for its cogeneration plant.

In March 1946, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approved a plan for revival and development of the country’s national economy. Around 6,000 large industrial facilities were to be reconstructed and commissioned as part of the fourth five-year plan.

The Novolipetsk plant was also being reborn. All city residents capable of working voluntarily participated in the reconstruction of the plant on weekends. Construction workers worked around the clock.

Pavel Sergeev, 1946–1962

(18 October 1911 – 7 November 1988)

Pavel Sergeev was born in Yenakiyevo, Donetsk Region, to the family of a white-collar employee.

He began his career as an apprentice mechanic at the machine shop of Yenakiyeve Iron and Steel Works.

He graduated fr om the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1932 as a blast furnace engineer and was sent to the Dzerzhinsk Metallurgical Plant in Dneprodzerzhinsk wh ere he worked until 1941 as a research engineer, foreman, shift supervisor, blast furnace unit manager, deputy blast furnace shop manager and acting blast furnace shop manager.

Sergeev was a veteran of the Second World War. He fought on the Leningrad Front, the Volkhov Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front as a platoon officer and division officer. In 1945 he returned to the steelmaking plant in Dneprodzerzhinsk to take the position of deputy director.

Sergeev was appointed Director of Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works in 1946.

The plant’s cogeneration plant as well as blast furnaces No. 1 and 2 were reconstructed and launched under his supervision. He also oversaw construction and commissioning of blast furnace No. 3, flat rolling shops (FRS) No. 1 and 2, electric arc furnace (EAF) and sections shops.

In 1962 he was relieved of his post for health reasons.

Pavel Sergeev became Head of Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works in 1946. Reconstruction of the plant destroyed during the war began under his leadership. In March 1946, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approved a plan for revival and development of the country’s national economy. About 6,000 large industrial facilities were to be reconstructed and commissioned as part of the fourth five-year plan, including Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works. According to the plan, a 1,000 cbm blast furnace was to be rebuilt within five years.

NLMZ was being reborn. All city residents who were capable of working voluntarily participated in the reconstruction of the plant on weekends. Construction workers worked around the clock.

Annual labour productivity reached 112.8% of the target and 129.5% compared to 1946. The cost of comparable products shrank by 4.2% against 1946, with 10.0% set as the target reduction. The plant showed total losses of 4,613,000 rubles in the balance of its core operations versus 2,960,000 rubles of projected losses. Investment utilisation was 30%, with 67.2% of target fulfilment through the plant’s own resources.

In 1947 the plant expanded the range of goods as it started production of the following new items:

• Cast steel valve for steam pipes 100 mm in diameter
• Forged steel valves (13, 19, 25, 32 mm)
• TSARI high-pressure valves No. 6 and 8
• Heat resistant fire grate bars for sinter belts

Construction of the crushing and beneficiation plant at the Studenovskoye deposit was completed on 1 September 1947. Vladimir Sidorov was the first to become head of the plant.

The plant beat its cost reduction target in the reporting year. Costs were to be reduced by 11.0% whilst in fact they dropped by 26.9%. The plant’s working capital went up by 1,401,000 rubles in 1948.

NLMZ managed to increase labour productivity by 38.5% in 1948.

In 1948 the plant produced a recovery unit for recycling spent oil. It was a complex system of pumps, electric preheating furnaces, pipe coils and other mechanisms. Testing proved that the machine was compliant with all technical requirements, with design capacity of 18–20 litres per hour. During testing and further operation, engineer Dankevich redesigned the preheating furnace. Following this modification, the recovery system’s processing capacity reached 24–30 litres per hour.

In summer 1948, NLMZ opened a health and recreation centre for its top performers, with a daily capacity of 50 people. The plant’s top Stakhanovites were the first to have a vacation at the centre.

There was a shortage of professional, well-trained talent again, just like before the war. A lot of Lipetsk steelworkers did not return from the battlefield. Many also stayed behind in the Urals for work. The issue of manpower was addressed by a shock work Stakhanovite approach, training young talent and employing women.

The plant’s workers were honoured with government awards for their achievement in restoration of NLMZ. Seven steelworkers earned the highest distinction – the Order of Lenin. Among them were S. Krushinsky and N. Sochnev, blast furnace shop foremen. Sochnev was the first in Lipetsk Region to be awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour title later in 1958.

Sochnev, Krushinsky and Ivanisov participated in the commissioning of the first blast furnace and production of the first pig iron at NLMZ in 1934.

The personnel of the Studenovskoye Mining Administration decided to raise flux production to 1,200,000 tonnes in 1952.

The performance of the labour productivity plan was exceeded by 8.1% in 11 months thanks to functional improvements in mechanisms and machines, mechanisation of labour-intensive processes, better work organisation and production management.

From Kommuna newspaper (21 September 1952): “The drive for transition to team Stakhanovite effort has been particularly intense. The other day, the title of the Stakhanovite facility was awarded to another three shops: the cogeneration plant, the construction and repair shop, and the control and instrumentation shop. Thus, 10 out of 18 shops at the plant are now titled Stakhanovite teamwork shops.

The gross production target was fulfilled on 8 December, when the pig iron production plan hit on 6 December.

The plant was on the upswing. The settlement for workers on the left bank of the Voronezh River was growing as well. The plant’s impact on the life and social development of the small company town became all the more significant. Nine high-rise apartment buildings, a hostel and three comprehensive secondary education schools were commissioned by the end of 1952.

The bulk of the pig iron produced was to be rolled into a wide range of steel plates. In addition, the plan involved construction of a sinter plant, new warehouse facilities, a dam and a bridge over the Voronezh River, as well as residential housing and public amenities.

Rollers were trained from scratch. A promotion and recruitment campaign was launched for the young people of the city and region. Discharged war veterans arrived to the plant in groups: leaving military service, army men from Lipetsk invited friends to come to their hometown to work at the new construction site.

Special evening classes were organised for construction workers willing to learn a new profession, such as furnace helper, mill roller and mill control panel operator. After an apprenticeship at allied plants across the country, these trainees made highly-qualified and competent steelworkers.

In 1954 NLMZ showed good performance in particular production areas: the gross output target was outstripped by 6.1% while the marketable products plan was exceeded by 5.7%.

At the time, NLMZ used soaking pits to heat the ingots brought from Magnitogorsk and Zaporozhye for two weeks. Afterwards, the ingots were rolled on the type-1200 mill according to the original technology: they were rolled into slabs on the universal mill stand, transported to the slab warehouse, passed through the continuous reheating furnace, and then rolled on the universal finishing stand and coiled by the end coiler.

Following the EAF shop’s launch in 1959, the type-1200 mill became the first hot mill in the world to produce semi-finished products for cold-rolled GO steel from precast slabs.

The equipment was upgraded at the hot-rolled flats shop (flat rolling shop No. 1). A universal mill was installed, its finishing stand replacing a whole batch of stands at thin-plate mills. This was the first such mill in the country and the fourteenth in the world. Also, a new accessory drive for the discharge carriage of the slitting unit was manufactured. Following these modifications, the design capacity of the shop was exceeded.

The blast furnaces were upgraded between 1953 and 1958. They were now equipped for operation under higher pressure of up to 0.6–0.8 atm at the furnace throat. Blast temperature was raised to 858 degrees, and blast output grew to 2,200–2,300 cubic metres per minute. An ore gantry was also put in operation and ore reclaiming improved. Blast furnaces began operating more smoothly, pig iron smelting became faster and coke consumption shrank.

In October 1959, the by-product coke shop was converted into a coke plant. All operations handling materials at the coke plant were now mechanised. Ramp operators, the heaviest and most hazardous occupation, became obsolete. Operations such as lifting coke oven hatch doors and opening the slide gates of the coal storage bunker were mechanised. Pneumatic tipping gear for coal and coal charge was installed, coke sampling was automated, and a number of other operations became power-operated. All areas where dust release or gas emission could occur were sealed.

On 31 December 1959 at 8:30 a.m., NLMZ received the first train of iron ore produced by miners at the Lebedinsky Mine on the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. The steelworkers who held a meeting for this occasion greeted the train with a storm of applause. The Novolipetsk employees were congratulated on the arrival of the first iron ore from Belgorod Region by Lebedinsky Mine Manager Kushnarenko, excavator operator Pavlov, and Chief Engineer of KMAruda Shifrin who made assurances that the miners would produce and ship 200,000–250,000 tonnes of ore to Lipetsk in 1960.

Construction was completed in the record time of 18 months while construction of rolling shops would normally take 23 months according to existing standards. The cost of construction and installation for the facility overall was 7.3 million rubles less than the estimate.

While adopting the grain oriented steel production technology, extensive research was conducted to improve the hot-rolling and cold-rolling technologies and develop decarburisation and recrystallisation annealing as well as high-temperature annealing.

This research identified the optimal parameters of steel structure, substructure and texture which control secondary recrystallisation during high-temperature annealing.

Thanks to this technology, the plant was able to significantly reduce GO steel production costs and increase output. There was a major breakthrough in the power industry when high grade home-produced electrical steel began to be used in manufacturing of high-power transformers.

The electrical engineering industry became less dependent on imported goods and the relevant restrictions in transformer production.

The construction of blast furnace No. 3 started in October 1960.

December 1960. The integrated project specification for construction of Stoilensky Mine, with an annual output potential of 4 million tonnes of iron ore, was approved by the Resolution of the Belgorod Economic Council.

In March 1964, the Kuybyshev – Moscow transmission line at NLMZ was switched over to the high voltage of 500 kV. This work completed, the 500 kV backbone power grid of the Unified Energy System of the European part of the USSR was in place.

The first stage of the two sinter strand sinter plant was commissioned at NLMZ in 1964.

In July 1964, 1 million cubic metres of spoil from Stoilensky mine was disposed of at dumps.

In October 1965, Stoilensky split from Kombinat KMAruda and became independent within the Tsentroruda Trust of the Council of National Economy of the Central Black Earth economic area.

The new stage of the plant’s development started in 1965. A new electrolysis unit was built at the cold-rolling shop, a new high-capacity generator was launched at the cogeneration plant, regular production of mineral fertilisers began at the nitrogen and fertiliser facilities, while the construction of the second continuous furnace at FRS-1, as well as a number of other facilities, was almost complete.

On 18 March 1966, basic oxygen furnace shop No. 1 (BOF-1) was put in operation. By the morning of March 19, the first slab was produced. The following words were immediately written on it in chalk: “Hurrah! Long live the working class!” The following day, the slab produced was used to cast a bas-relief featuring the words: “A gift for the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. First converter steel produced at NLMZ. March 1966”. The shop reached its design capacity in 14 months, which was 16 months prior to the target date.

BOF-1 was the first in the world to combine heavy-duty converters and high-performance vertical continuous slab casters in a single technological cycle. During implementation of this technology, the basic principles of logistics were developed for combination of high-performance basic oxygen furnaces, metal purification units and continuous casting machines. The subsequent scope of work for reconstruction of the shop’s equipment made it possible to improve the operational level of the continuous slab casters and provide a substantial increase in the capacity of the BOF production .

NLMZ’s new steelmaking method gave birth to the currently widespread technology of ’continuous-continuous casting‘, which means continuous casting of ingots fr om a series of replaceable steel teeming ladles.

This method delivered a reduction in metal loss, improved chemical homogeneity, surface finish and internal structure of cast metal, and later on fundamentally changed the downstream workflow, eliminating slabbing mills and enabling hot charging of ingots and ’direct‘ rolling of billets, significantly simplifying the procedure of billet preparation for steelmaking.

The plant improved key steelmaking production parameters for a wide range of high grade steel (including low carbon steel for automotive sheets and low alloy tube steel), as well as a melted steel protection system against secondary oxidation, mold oscillators for the continuous slab caster and the secondary slab cooling system. Stopper-free steel teeming from ladles was adopted and implemented as well.

On 6 July 1966, the State Commission authorised the first stage of the BOF shop for operation. Many builders were decorated with the highest award, the Order of Lenin, including Lipetskstroy Trust Manager Sergei Shuminsky and Chief Engineer Vladimir Khoroshavin. New residential neighbourhoods in Lipetsk were named after them.

On 1 June 1966, Stoilensky celebrated its fifth anniversary. More than 33 million cubic metres of overburden rock had been dumped over this time.

Production accounting at the blast furnace shop, shipping and sale records, scrap intake records broken down by supplier and the analysis of sold product accounts were all mechanised using a machine tabulation station, which was later reorganised into the Data Processing Centre and then the CAM system.

On 1 July 1969, flat rolling shop No. 3 was commissioned, with a type-2000 mill designed to produce 5.8 million tonnes per year. The mill was put in commercial operation in April 1970.

Special long steel production processes for the shipbuilding and oil processing industries were developed and implemented, and the technology of steel strip rolling from special grades of construction steel was adopted.

The new design of the mill equipment enabled roll pressure and rolling speed rates which had not been possible before, as well as a substantial increase in the weight of rolled slabs.

The design output capacity of the mill was 5.78 million tonnes per year, unprecedented in global practice.

On 1 March 1969, the crushing and screening plant produced 3.8 million tonnes of high grade ore in one year, fully in line with its production load.

The first train of iron ore from Stoilensky mine was shipped to Novotulsky Metallurgical Plant on 2 April 1969.

On 31 December 1968, the State Commission signed an acceptance act for commissioning of the first-stage facilities of the Stoilensky Mining Administration, with an annual design capacity of 2 million tonnes of high grade ore.

On 28 November 1968, the last steam locomotive was decommissioned at NLMZ. The plant was the first in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to move on to diesel locomotive engines. On December 3, rollers of FRS-2 shipped the one millionth tonne of steel to the Electrosila plant in Leningrad.

On 1 March 1969, the crushing and screening plant (CSP) took an industrial load of 3.8 million tonnes of high grade ore per year.
On 2 April 1969, the first train of iron ore fr om Stoilensky was shipped to Novotulsky Metallurgical Plant.
During 1968 and the first six months of 1969, computer technology was implemented at NLMZ. An automated control system for basic oxygen furnace production based on the Zuse 25/32 computer was developed and installed at the plant, and the first stage automated production control system was implemented using a Minsk-22 computer at FRS-2. Production accounting at the blast furnace shop, shipping and sale records, scrap intake records broken down by supplier and the analysis of sold product accounts were all mechanised using a machine tabulation station, which was later reorganised into the Data Processing Centre and then the CAM system.

On 1 July 1969, flat rolling shop No. 3 was commissioned, with a type-2000 mill designed to produce 5.8 million tonnes per year. The mill was put in commercial operation in April 1970.

The type-2000 mill is one of the largest facilities in the industry. The total weight of its equipment is more than 37,000 tonnes. The area occupied by the unit itself is more than 120,000 square metres, with a 1.2 kilometre-long hot-rolling production line. The overall generating capacity of electric motors powering the mill equipment exceeds 170,000 kW. The mill is equipped with state-of-the-art automated production control systems.
The mill was designed with the application of the world’s cutting-edge technology of continuous rolling from continuously cast slabs and coiling hot-rolled strips, from the thinnest (1.2 mm) to thick (16 mm) ones, up to 1,850 mm in width, at a high speed and relatively low temperature.
Special long steel production processes for the shipbuilding and oil processing industries were developed and implemented, and the technology of steel strip rolling from special grades of construction steel was adopted.
The new design of the mill equipment enabled roll pressure and rolling speed rates which had not been possible before, as well as a substantial increase in the weight of rolled slabs.
The design output capacity of the mill was 5.78 million tonnes per year, unprecedented in global practice.
On 1 March 1969, the crushing and screening plant produced 3.8 million tonnes of high grade ore in one year, fully in line with its production load.
The first train of iron ore from Stoilensky mine was shipped to Novotulsky Metallurgical Plant on 2 April 1969.




Serafim Kolpakov
Director of Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works in 1970–1978
Serafim Kolpakov was born in Lipetsk.

He graduated from the Lipetsk Ore Mining and Smelting College in 1951 and was sent to Ashinsky Metallurgical Plant wh ere he worked as a crew leader, production foreman and deputy head of the foundry shop.
Between 1957 and 1963, Kolpakov worked at Lipetsk Tractor Plant as a crew leader in the steel foundry shop, foreman, acting section manager and senior foreman of the iron foundry shop.
In 1963 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, having completed his education, he changed his job and began working at Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works at BOF-1. He worked as a foreman, shift manager and deputy shop manager.
Kolpakov was appointed head of BOF-1 in 1967 and director of the plant in 1970. He was directly involved in the development and adoption of new technology of steelmaking through heavy-duty converters with subsequent continuous casting by special machines as well as in development and implementation of an integrated environmental protection control system at the plant.
Facilities built and commissioned under his leadership include blast furnace No. 2 which is still in operation, blast furnace No. 5, the steelmaking slag processing shop, the waste water treatment shop, steelmaking equipment repair shop No. 2, Zvezdny Sports Arena, Prometheus summer camp.
Serafim Kolpakov was appointed Deputy Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR in 1978 and became Minister in 1985. In 1989 he was appointed Minister of Metallurgy of the USSR. He retired in 1990 with an individual pension in recognition of his service to the nation.
In 1991, he became Vice President of the Union of Associations and Joint Stock Companies in the Area of Non-Conventional Materials.
Kolpakov was elected President of the International Union of Metalworkers in 1992.
During the 11th Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (employers) in November 2000, he was elected to the Board of the RSPP.
In October 2001, Kolpakov was elected to the Management Committee of the Non-profit Partnership ‘Consortium Russian Steel’ founded after the agreement between NLMK and NTMK was signed.

Serafim Kolpakov was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.

The 1969–1970 Lenin Komsomol Prize was awarded in May 1970 to Alexander Teplenichev, a senior caster (crew leader) of BOF-1, for “excellent performance of the youth Komsomol teams, implementation of advanced production technologies, machines, mechanisms and best practices”.

In 1970 Starooskolsky Cement Plant began processing limestone from Stoilensky mine.

On 27 March 1970, Stoilensky miners had committed to produce 1 million tonnes of iron ore by the 100^th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, and fulfilled their obligation 27 days ahead of schedule.

In 1973, the USSR’s output totalled 131 million tonnes of steel and 91 million tonnes of rolled products. Steelmaking production grew by 4.8%, downstream production by 4.5% and steel tubing by 3.7% compared with the previous year.

The country’s industrial output went up by 7.3% in 1973, instead of 5.8% as had been targeted. Thanks to commissioning of new facilities in the 1970s, the USSR’s iron and steel industry reached a stable steel output of around 160 million tonnes by the mid-1980s.

In 1973 construction of sinter strands at the sinter plant was completed. Fluxed magnesia-manganese sinter technology was implemented here for the first time in the domestic iron and steel industry, which provided an increase in pig iron output at no additional cost.

NLMK sinter production is currently the largest in the industry with an annual design capacity of more than 11.5 million tonnes of sinter.

The shop was built on two square kilometres along with auxiliary facilities which would be up there with a present-day plant. New high unit capacity BOFs enabled the plant to implement advanced steel production technology. For example, it took 40–41 minutes to convert 160 tonnes of iron at the first BOF shop and only 32–36 minutes to convert twice as much iron at the second shop. The oxygen supply for blowing was tripled. The curved apron continuous slab casters were built at Uralmashzavod, the All- Russian Research and Design Institute of Metallurgical Engineering (VNIIMETMASH), I.P. Bardin Central Research Institute for Ferrous Metallurgy, Lengipromez and Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works.

The casting speed of these machines was double or triple the rate ever reached at BOF-1. The new machines were equipped with high-precision systems to measure and control the temperature of liquid steel in ladles, which is essential to ensure high quality slabs are cast.

On 15 December 1974, BOF-2 produced its first steel slab.

In May 1977 construction of the first coke battery started at Altai-Koks. Excavator operators and drivers made way for carpenters, concrete workers; then finishers, refractory men, installers and fitters. 22,000 tonnes of refractory brick of 1,200 brands was used for the battery coating.

The operation of BF-6 was fully automated, including an automated furnace running control system with hot stoves, feeding conveyors and BF slag granulation units. Workflow was controlled by a computer.

Thanks to equipment upgrades, cutting-edge technology and highly qualified personnel the shop was able to increase annual output to 2.9 million tonnes of pig iron.

The same year marked the 50^th anniversary of the Studenovskoye deposit which the staff celebrated by producing 2.350 million tonnes of fluxing limestone.

In the 1970s, the problem of supplying the USSR with high-quality wide-strip flat steel, which had been in short supply, was largely solved. The production of building structures and large diameter pipes and development of the automotive and railcar-building industries were on the rise.

The shop was equipped with the most up-to-date and high-performance machines of the time. It supplied the demand for cold-rolled products by machine engineering and consumer electronics companies. The goods produced by NLMZ were used in manufacturing of complex devices for the automotive industry (exterior body parts made of steel with extra deep drawing properties) and household appliances (front panels of refrigerators and washing machines).

NLMZ plant’s products were highly competitive with leading foreign manufacturers, thanks to the computers used in the production process. Commissioning of the shop allowed for a significant reduction in the dependence of the country’s industry on imported cold-rolled products. Thanks to NLMZ starting production of first surface finish group steel products, AVTOVAZ was able to stop importing sheet metal altogether.

The continuous annealing machine has the highest level of automation and makes it possible to optimise heat treatment modes and obtain homogeneous structure and stable metal characteristics. Steel processing on the continuous annealing machine meet the strictest requirements by customers in terms of surface finish, flatness and consistency of mechanical properties.

Construction of this machine enabled production of cold-rolled steel products of unique quality to satisfy the needs of the automotive industry and consumer electronics manufacturers: rolled products with the BH effect (bake hardening when paint coating is dried); rolled products with a high level of surface finish and flatness; rolled products made of new generation dual-phase advanced high-strength steel (AHSS) – in which their mechanical properties are not fixed and change in case of any stress; this phenomenon can be used to reduce a car’s weight and improve safety at the same time).

Due to the launch of the continuous annealing machine at NLMZ, domestic production of consumer electronics increased. The output of two- and three-compartment refrigerators grew by 17.5 times, from 143,000 to 2,500,000 units. Production of freezers increased from 7,000 in 1980 to 500,000 in 1988.

The Central Laboratory of Environmental Protection (CLEP) began to operate in October 1983. It was re-established to ensure enterprise-wide compliance with the Regulation on Environmental Protection Activities approved by the order of the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy and application of the National Standard on Environmental Protection Management.

In June 1983 a pump unit automatic control system was used at the plant for the first time. It ensured reliable control of the water level in the piezometric tower and automated control of submersible pumps.

On 25 July 1983, Zapadnaya Station was commissioned, the first at Stoilensky to use automation and telemetry systems to control train traffic.

On 7 September 1983, the acceptance certificate for commissioning the quartzite mine was signed by a working committee.

On 16–17 December 1983, the first sample of iron ore concentrate was produced from unoxidised quartzite, after processing 1,000 tonnes of crude ore.

That year, along with NLMK’s anniversary, coke plant workers celebrated the 25^th anniversary of their facility. Commendations were given to 125 employees, with records entered in their employment record books, while 135 top performing workers at the coke plant were awarded the NLMK Letter of Commendation.

A youth talent contest was held showcasing technological innovations under the slogan: “My first improvement idea for the 50^th anniversary of the plant”, with over 450 ideas submitted. 305 of them were approved as labour-saving innovations.

On 9 January 1984, the youth Komsomol team headed by Mine Foreman S. Korendyasov produced the 50 millionth tonne of high grade iron ore.

On 28 February 1984, the first train load of Stoilensky concentrate was shipped to Lipetsk steelworkers.

On 25 December 1984, the youth Komsomol team headed by A. Kryuchkov reached one million tonne of concentrate mark at the beneficiation plant.

In 1984–1990, three sections of the beneficiation plant for wet magnetic separation with an annual design capacity of 4.8 million tonnes of concentrate were built and launched.

In June 1985, NLMK introduced a shop-based management system at subsidiary Karamyshevsky Sovkhoz. A new NLMK Medical Unit health clinic with a patient capacity of 3,000 people per shift was opened in August.

In 1986 the electrical engineering industry had a demand for non-grain oriented steel of 600,000 tonnes.

The launch of FRS-5 at the full capacity of 480,000 tonnes of NGO steel per year enabled electrical engineering enterprises to reduce consumption of steel in manufacturing of electrical machines by 15–20% and save up to three billion kWh each year for the national economy through cutting specific energy losses. This was equivalent to commissioning three hydro power plants similar to Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP.

In February 1987, the nondestructive inspection devices and systems (NIDS) shop using ionizing radiation sources was established. The shop was designed to ensure continuous operation of existing devices and systems for nondestructive inspection and testing of parameters of raw materials and products with specified accuracy; detect defects of parts, nodes, structures and welded joints of mechanical and power engineering equipment; implement new nondestructive inspection and testing aids and systems at all conversion stages. The NIDS shop ensured the quality of rolled products in terms of gage interference, and thickness control of galvanised and paint coating within the range of optimal values downstream; control of blast furnace smelting with reduced coke consumption and steady batch charging in blast furnace production; and optimal loading of hoppers with charging material in sinter, refractory and basic oxygen furnace production.

On 1 November 1987, the second stage of flat rolling shop No. 5 was launched. The annual plan was outstripped by 16.9% as FRS-5 shipped 39,442 tonnes of NGO steel above target.

The universally accepted technology of isotropic electrical steel production with double rolling was to be used at the shop. However, the plant’s employees, jointly with the Lipetsk branch of the Bardin Central Research Institute for Ferrous Metallurgy, implemented a one-step steel processing pattern, which made it possible to increase the annual output of cold-rolled steel to 500,000 tonnes. The same year, the shop’s employees and the Electrical Steel Research and Development Centre developed and implemented a more advanced half-organic electrically insulated “Isort” coating (instead of the phosphate coating stipulated in the contract).

In the course of FRS-5 operation, new products were continuously developed to replace imported goods.

As former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, , wrote in his memoirs: “During the 19^th party conference held in 1988, I was contacted, in my capacity of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, by Ivan Frantsenyuk who asked for permission to use steel produced above the target to build a refrigerator shop at NLMK.”

The reinforced concrete products shop was set up at the precasting yard to build housing using the plant’s own resources. In August 1990, the shop was converted into a building structures and materials plant to increase annual housing construction to 30,000–40,000 square metres.

In 1991 NLMK became the first plant in Russia to produce cold-rolled products from titanium and niobium-alloyed ultra low carbon steel (IF type) designed for die stamping of particularly complex components in the automotive industry. The content of carbon and nitrogen in the new steel was only thousandths of a percent. IF steel produced by NLMK is as good as any similar foreign-made steel in all criteria.

The new steel allowed for manufacturing complex products of a complex shape, as well as reducing the number of operations in stamping and welding processes, which was particularly valuable in manufacturing of highly complex parts in the automotive industry.

The same year, the plant became the first in Russia to launch a high-speed colour coating line (CCL) with a design capacity of 140,000 tonnes. NLMK was also the first Russian steelmaking plant to start manufacturing of the highest value-added product, pre-painted steel.

CCL-1 absorbed leading global achievements and was way ahead of its time – the real demand for its products evolved only in the late 1990s.

In December 1991, Avtomet, a research and development enterprise, was established as a subsidiary of NLMK to provide integrated automation services for the plant. Over four years, specialists implemented automation of the main shops RPS, FRS-3, FRS-5, BOF-1 and Refractory Shop. The most important developments and innovations include an automated control system for the finishing stand group of the type-2000 mill based on new-generation IBM PCs integrated into a single computer network; automated equipment repair control systems for FRS-5 and RPS; and an integrated accounting system of the plant.

On 3 November 1992, Joint-Stock Company Stoilensky Mining and Processing Plant (Stoilensky) was founded following privatisation of the state-run company of the same name to be its legal successor in accordance with the constituent documents.

Pursuant to Decision No. 823 of the Lipetsk Region State Property Management Committee dated 31 December 1992, the state-run enterprise The Yu. V. Andropov Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works honoured with the Lenin Order and the October Revolution Order was reorganised into the Novolipetsk Steel Open Type Joint Stock Company.

On 24 April 1998, JSC Stoilensky GOK was reorganised into an open joint-stock company – OJSC.

On 12 August 1998, Open Type Joint Stock Company Novolipetsk Steel was reorganised into OJSC Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) based on the decision of the annual general meeting of shareholders dated 1 August 1998.

In 2000 Novolipetsk began implementing a large-scale technical upgrade programme, which aimed to increase steel production output and improve the quality of steel products and production efficiency. The plant substantially increased investment in production development and capital repairs of major units, spending 3.19 billion rubles to achieve these goals.

Over 220 billion rubles was invested in production upgrade in and before 2012, with more than 190 projects implemented.

NLMK shipped 8 million tonnes of steel products in 2000. The plant’s commodity output grew by 8% compared with 1999. Overall, 7.5 million tonnes of rolled products was produced for an 8% growth rate, including 4.7 million tonnes of flat steel with 18.2% growth).

A state-of-the-art coke battery, unparalleled anywhere in Russia or the CIS, was put in operation. Only two machines of this kind had been launched in Russia over the previous decade, both of them at NLMK. The new coke battery was a facility with 3,500 tonnes of steel structures, 22,000 tonnes of refractory and 3,500 tonnes of production equipment. Microprocessor devices installed on the battery were used to control production processes aimed at ensuring the efficiency of coke gas combustion and preventing discharge of coke gas into the atmosphere.

Ten specialised organisations participated in the construction of the coke battery. NLMK specialists completed adjustment of the equipment assembled.

The dust free coke pushing system used on the new coke battery allowed 490 tonnes of dust to be collected each year and the total amount of atmospheric dust emissions to be reduced by 80%, around 1,500 tonnes per year. The overall costs to NLMK of the launch totalled more than 500 million rubles.

90% of all equipment was produced domestically.

The second continuous hot-dip galvanising line was launched at FRS-5. It was based on the continuous annealing machine previously employed. Its annual production output totalled 150,000 tonnes of galvanised metal, 0.3–0.5 mm thick, which was in strong demand on the market.

The new production line was unique because it had been rebuilt from the continuous annealing machine. The work was completed over an exceptionally short period of time: it took less than two years to implement the project. The services of foreign companies Stein Heurtey (France), ANDRITZ Sundwig and Menzel & Krause were enlisted for the project. This reduced time frame also enabled the plant to leave its competitors in the hot-dip galvanised steel market well behind. The machine was rebuilt by specialists of NLMK’s engineering centre and repair plant. The reconstruction was 5 times cheaper than construction of an entirely new production line.

In June 2002, for the first time in the history of Stoilensky, 1.019 million tonnes of concentrate and 134,000 tonnes of sinter ore was shipped to customers.

In September 2002, 14 employees of Stoilensky received upper governmental awards for their long-term and excellent service and professional achievements from Evgeny Savchenko, Governor of Belgorod Region, by order of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Stoilensky’s cutting-edge production technology is ensured by the continuous search for innovation and creative approach.

The new workflow for production of anisotropic electrical steel allowed NLMK to ensure:

• Homogeneous structure and stable magnetic characteristics along the full length of strips due to reduction of impurities in steel and production of 20-tonne hot-rolled coils.

• Steel ductility and drop in the consumption index by 1.3 times, in spite of an increase in silicon content to 3.20%.

• Doubling of high grade steel production and improvement of its competitiveness.

Following the new workflow implementation, outdated production facilities electric arc furnace shop and flat rolling shop No. 1 were decommissioned, which enabled the plant to reduce its environmental impact significantly. The new equipment was commissioned as part of the Technical Upgrade Programme launched at NLMK in 2000.

On 15 February 2003, the beneficiation plant of Stoilensky produced record output of 36,400 tonnes of iron ore concentrate, with the daily target of 33,400 tonnes.

In November 2003, Stoilensky set a record in delivery volume. Steelworkers received 1.173 million tonnes of iron ore (1.002,4 million tonnes of concentrate and 170,600 tonnes of sinter ore).

Modernisation of power facilities was completed at NLMK in 2004. As a result, the plant’s self-sufficiency in energy grew to 40%.

A system of up-to-date high pressure steam generation equipment with a capacity of 220 tonnes per hour was put in operation at NLMK’s cogeneration plant. Investment in the project totalled 210 million rubles. Following this upgrade, NLMK’s energy capacity improved and its self-sufficiency in energy increased to 40%. The load on the unified energy system was reduced significantly. Annual power consumption dropped by 265 million kWh. Power generated by NLMK turned out to cost half as much as power purchased from RAO UES of Russia.

The commissioned system included a boiler, auxiliary units, measuring instruments as well as an automated process control system and a flue gas composition control system. A mixture of blast furnace gas and coke oven gas was to be used as fuel for steam generation, with pressure of up to 100 atm and temperature of 5,200 °C.

On 15 December 2005, NLMK had an IPO at the London Stock Exchange, placing 420 million common shares (42 million GDS), which accounted for 7% of share capital. The offering price for the IPO at the LSE was set at $1.45 per share, $14.50 per GDS (10 shares). Following the IPO procedure, NLMK capitalisation totalled about $8.7 billion.

UBS Limited and Merrill Lynch International jointly acted as IPO bookrunners.

In 2006 NLMK acquired Independent Transportation Company LLC (NTK), a logistics operator providing 100% of the company’s railway transportation.

NTK was a key logistics asset of the Company, ensuring timely delivery of raw materials for steelmaking and shipment of finished products to customers in Russia and abroad. NTK coordinated interaction with Russian Railways and port authorities regarding export operations.

In 2006 NLMK acquired VIZ-Steel, Russia’s second-largest electrical steel producer with an annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes. VIZ-Steel’s semi-finished product needs are entirely supplied by NLMK.

VIZ-Steel is an electrical steel production facility located in Yekaterinburg. It produces cold-rolled electrical steel. The production capacity of VIZ-Steel totals around 200,000 tonnes of electrical steel per year. The company’s share of the Russian grain oriented steel market is 56%, with 11% of the global market.

Altai-Koks coke plant satisfying 100% of NLMK’s demand for coke was acquired in 2006.

Altai-Koks is the leading Russian coke plant producing high-quality coke and chemical products. The production capacity of Altai-Koks totals 3.8 million tonnes of six-percent humidity coke. The plant was to commission a new coke battery with a capacity of 1.14 million tonnes at the end of 2006.

Danish steel rolling company DanSteel A/S, a producer of thick steel plates, was acquired in 2006. The semi-finished product needs of DanSteel A/S are completely supplied by NLMK’s steel slabs.

The annual production output of DanSteel A/S is about 500,000 tonnes of hot-rolled thick plates. DanSteel A/S has state-of-the-art production facilities. For a few years, NLMK had successfully cooperated with the Danish company, being DanSteel’s key supplier of steel slabs since 2002.

In 2006 NLMK and Duferco Group set up a joint venture including one steelmaking facility and five rolling mills as well as a network of steel service centres in Europe and the USA. The JV’s total output of finished products was estimated at 4.5 million tonnes.

The companies approved a large-scale technical upgrade and development programme. Total investment was estimated at €375 million. Through the JV with Duferco, NLMK planned to increase slab production by 3.4 million tonnes, while Duferco, which had been facing a shortfall in slab capacity, aimed to expand the output of high value-added goods as well as steel products of special grades.

The JV included the following companies:

• Carsid S.A. (Marcinelle, Belgium) – a slab producer with a production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes per year.

• Duferco La Louvière S.A. (La Louvière, Belgium) – a rolled steel producer, with an annual hot-rolling capacity of 2.0 million tonnes, cold-rolling capacity of 1.6 million tonnes, and wire rod capacity of 0.36 million tonnes.

• Duferco Clabecq S.A. (Ittre, Belgium) – a thick plate producer with a production capacity of 0.8 million tonnes per year.

• Duferco Coating S.A.S. (Strasbourg and Beautor, France) – a coated steel producer comprising two production assets: Sorral (with an annual hot-dip galvanised steel capacity of 0.32 million tonnes and pre-painted steel capacity of 0.12 million tonnes) and Beautor (with an annual cold-rolling capacity of 0.35 million tonnes and electrogalvanised steel capacity of 0.33 million tonnes).

• Duferco Farrell Corp. (Farrell, Pennsylvania, USA) – a flat rolled steel producer with an annual hot-rolling capacity of 1.8 million tonnes and cold-rolling capacity of 0.8 million tonnes.

Acciaierie Grigoli S.p.a. (Verona, Italy) – a producer of heavy plates and ingots with an annual heavy plate production capacity of 0.6 million tonnes.

In addition, the joint venture includes a distribution group of nine service centres selling products manufactured by the JV and other producers. The service centres are located in France, Belgium and Czech Republic.

In 2008 NLMK completed the acquisition of 100% stakes in Novexco (Cyprus) Limited in Cyprus and Novex Trading (Swiss) S.A. in Switzerland, both trading companies. This transaction was in line with the Company’s strategy to establish an international trading department.

The acquisition of these trading companies was instrumental to improve control over the Company’s export sales to core markets and enabled it to consolidate revenue from trading companies.

In 2008 NLMK commissioned a laser beam machine and developed a technology for GO steel laser processing with a specific loss rate of P1.7/50≤1.00 W/kg. Use of this steel allowed the Company to reduce electrical operating costs by 10%.

In 2009 NLMK entirely stopped discharging waste water into the Voronezh River, as part of the Technical Upgrade Programme, reducing river water consumption by two thirds. The company was able to do this by substantially upgrading the industrial water supply system and implementing a new process flow. NLMK built a new pipeline system and launched new pump stations, also renovating the existing ones. This helped improve waste water quality, making it possible to reuse waste water rather than taking in fresh river water.

The shop was equipped with up-to-date equipment from leading global manufacturers – Danieli, SMS Meer and Sund Birsta. The basic process equipment was a high-capacity double-strand type-150 mill with a rolling speed of up to 110 metres per second, ensuring high quality of finished products. The new facility began producing rebar (No. 6 to 16) as well as wire rod with a diameter of 5.5-22 mm.

NLMK Russia Long was the first steelmaker in Russia to launch production of A500C class heat-strengthened reinforcing steel in coils with a diameter of 6.0–12.0 mm. Moreover, NLMK Russia Long began producing wire rods for cold heading, i.e. for manufacturing metalware by cold die-forging, as well as wire rods made from high-carbon and special welding steels for the Russian market.

NLMK’s new 150 MW recovery cogeneration plant was launched at the Lipetsk site in 2011. It was designed to process blast furnace gas from blast furnace No. 7.

With the new recovery cogeneration plant launched at the Lipetsk site, NLMK’s power generation capacity increased by 45%, to 482 MW, bringing the level of energy self-sufficiency from 47% up to 56%, regardless of the expansion of the blast furnace and steelmaking capacity. Investment in the project was 6.8 billion rubles.

Overall investment in the construction of the blast furnace, recovery cogeneration plant and BF infrastructure totalled 43 billion rubles.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) awarded the project a prize for its model integrated energy-saving strategy, promotion of best management practices and skills related to innovative environmental technologies and energy management solutions, which allowed gross emissions to be reduced by 15 times compared with the old technology.

In 2011 NLMK closed a deal to acquire the remaining 50% stake in Steel Invest and Finance (SIF) from Duferco Group. The transaction resulted in SIF becoming a 100% owned subsidiary of NLMK. Following the acquisition, NLMK established its new business divisions – NLMK Europe and NLMK USA comprising all international assets of the Group.

NLMK Europe division consolidated the Group’s assets in the European Union. It comprised six steel rolling production assets, in particular hot-rolling including for thick plates, cold-rolling, galvanising and pre-painting facilities as well as a network of service and distribution centres. The division employs 3,000 people. NLMK’s business model is unique for Europe and based on stable supply of semi-finished products (slabs) from Russia to European facilities located close to customers that produce flat high value-added products.

NLMK USA comprises three flat steel production facilities – NLMK Indiana, NLMK Pennsylvania (formerly, Duferco Farrell) and Sharon Coating. The division has an electric arc furnace (EAF) at NLMK Indiana with a capacity of 730,000 tonnes and steelmaking facilities with 2.7 million tonnes of capacity producing slabs, hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanised steel. The new division brought additional benefits through a common distribution setup in the USA, in particular for pipe and tube production as well as machine building.

In 2011 processing unit IV was commissioned at Stoilensky’s beneficiation plant. Following the launch, the iron ore concentrate output went up by 2 million tonnes, bringing the total annual concentrate production capacity to 14 million tonnes.

On 28 October 2011, the official commissioning ceremony for the new quenching & tempering line was held at NLMK Clabecq. Implementation of the project helped ensure sustainable development of NLMK Clabecq and overcome consequences of the economic global crisis. The annual capacity of the line is 250,000 tonnes, which means that one third of NLMK Clabecq’s products will pass through the quenching & tempering line.

NLMK Clabecq produces a wide range of thick plates, including light plates, which are distinguished by high-quality surface finish and adjustable flatness and thickness.

In 2011 CCL-3 improved the Company’s output of finished painted strips, 0.3–0.8 mm thick and 700–1,250 mm wide. These products enjoy stable demand in Russia, as they are used in manufacturing of building structures, including metal roof tiles, profiled panels, sandwich panels, and interior and exterior cladding. Strips produced at the new line are thinner than ever before.

In 2011 NLMK was granted the right to develop the third mine field of the Usinsk coal deposit (Usinsky-3) located in the northern part of the Komi Republic. The Usinsk deposit is located in the north-western part of the Pechora coal basin, 45 km south-west of the Vorkuta deposit in Komi. The Usinsk-3 deposit has commercial reserves of over 227 million tonnes of high-quality hard coking coal of Zh and KZh grades in C1+C2 categories.

In 2011 the Lipetsk site completed upgrade of a continuous casting machine (CCM-8) with a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per year. CCM-8 was the fifth machine to be renovated at the Lipetsk site.

Its commissioning enabled the plant to launch production of slabs 355 mm thick, while slabs produced by continuous casting machines of this type in Russia are typically 300 mm thick. This reconstruction allowed NLMK to streamline the production of thick plates, in particular in subsidiary European companies – DanSteel and Clabecq. Thick plates are in high demand in the machine-building and energy sectors.

As part of the project, the CCM was fully revamped, including replacement of casting stands and installation of closed loop water cooling systems. CCM-8 is the first in Russia to use a dynamic secondary cooling model to improve the surface quality and internal structure of billets. The facility is fully equipped with an advanced automation and instrumentation system.

NLMK’s new 300-tonne BOF was put in operation in Lipetsk in 2011. Alongside other Technical Upgrade Programme activities, the launch of the new BOF enabled a 36% increase in steelmaking capacity at the Lipetsk site to 12.4 million tonnes per year.

In 2011 NLMK acquired National Laminations Group, a service centre in India specialising in electrical grain oriented steel cutting and distribution.

National Laminations Group is an anisotropic (grain oriented) steel processing and distribution company located in Mumbai. It has an annual processing capacity of 16,000 tonnes. The company also has warehousing facilities with a capacity of 40,000 tonnes located 20 km from Mumbai, close to the port, which facilitates delivery of NLMK’s grain oriented steel from Russia.

NLMK began construction of the mill in the Vorsino industrial park located 70 km from Moscow in 2008, investing 38 billion rubles in the project. The annual capacity of NLMK Kaluga amounted to 1.5 million tonnes of steel and 0.9 million tonnes of rolled products. The EAF shop includes an electric arc furnace, a ladle furnace and an 8-strand continuous casting machine designed to produce billets 100x100 mm, 125x125 mm, 150x150 mm and 160x160 mm in cross section and 6–12 m long. The equipment was supplied by Siemens VAI Metals Technologies (Austria).

The rolling shop includes a type-400/215 small and medium section mill (SMS Meer, Italy) producing AI class plain rebar 10–20 mm in diameter; A500C periodic class rebar 10–40 mm in diameter; as well as sections (25–100 mm equal angles, channels No. 5–12 and beams No. 8 and 10). Rolling capacity can potentially be expanded to 1.5 million tonnes by installing another rolling mill (medium section).

Key objectives of Strategy 2017:

1. Leadership in production efficiency

• Fully implement NLMK Production System

• Achieve target net gains of $330 million a year

2. World-class resource base

• Achieve full self-sufficiency in iron ore with a flexible charge material mix (pellets, sinter, sinter ore)

• Reduce consumption of high-cost resources

• Achieve target net gains of $480 million a year

3. Market leadership in strategic geographies

• Boost steel product sales to 16.3 million tonnes versus 14.9 million tonnes in 2013

• Bring the share of high value-added products in total sales to 40% versus 35% in 2013

• Increase the share of domestic sales to 45 percent versus 39 percent in 2013

• Achieve target net gains of $190 million a year

4. Leadership in sustainable development and safety

• Minimise environmental impact on a systematic basis

• Ensure full compliance with occupational health and safety standards

• Achieve industry-wide leadership in labour productivity supported by motivated and engaged personnel

In March 2015The Board of Directors approved NLMK’s new dividend policy. According to the new dividend policy, dividends are to be paid on a quarterly basis with the payout in the range of 50% of net income and 50% of free cash flow calculated based on US GAAP consolidated financial statements, if Net Debt/EBITDA is 1.0x or less.

In 2015, NLMK Group and Belgian SOGEPA (Societe Wallonne de Gestion et de Participations S.A.) agreed on changes to NLMK Belgium Holdings’ (NBH) ownership structure and governance. The parties signed an agreement increasing SOGEPA’s interest in NBH from 20.5% to 49%.

NBH comprises the production companies and service centres of the NLMK Europe Strip Division (NLMK La Louvière, NLMK Strasbourg, NLMK Coating, NLMK Jemappes Steel Center, NLMK Manage Steel Center and NLMK Profil Batiment), and two NLMK Europe Plate production companies (NLMK Verona and NLMK Clabecq).

Under the new agreement, the NBH board of directors was be increased to include four representatives of NLMK Group and three representatives of SOGEPA. SOGEPA also received board seats at the principal production subsidiaries of NBH.

In May 2015, NLMK launched an innovative environmental facility – a biochemical waste water treatment facility at coke and chemical operations at the Lipetsk production site.

The facility is unique in Russia and employs a custom technology developed by Russian scientists for deep biochemical water purification from phenols, rhodanides, ammoniacal nitrogen and its oxides. The 160 m³/hour facility was designed using the best available technologies, and provided a twenty-fold improvement in the quality of treatment of coke and chemical operations waste water for reuse in the closed-loop water cycle.

All infrastructure and utilities were installed above ground on an isolated concrete area equipped with a rain, melt and drain water collector, preventing any chance of groundwater pollution in the event of a containment failure and providing twenty-fold reduction in air emissions of specific pollutants that are generated as industrial waste evaporates.

Total investment into the project which was implemented as part of NLMK’s Environmental Programme 2020 exceed RUB 2 billion.

In June 2015, NLMK launched operation of a new top-pressure recovery turbine (TRT), a green energy-generating facility, at its Lipetsk production site. Top-pressure recovery turbines generate energy using excess blast furnace gas pressure. Blast furnace gas produced during the smelting of hot metal in blast furnaces at Novolipetsk is also channeled to a heat power plant and a recovery cogeneration plant for captive energy generation.

The launched TRT is part of a complex with a total design capacity of 28 MW. Launch of the second TRT is scheduled in 2016. The project set to increase the plant’s energy self-sufficiency from 54% to 56%. The TRT will therefore reduce the amount of energy that must be purchased for the plant by 200 million kWh per year, which accounts for approximately 6% of total purchased energy. Investment in the two TRTs is estimated at 1.9 billion rubles.

In June 2015 NLMK Group announced the opening of a unified sales service centre to serve the Company’s domestic and international clients. Unified call-centre telephone number: +7 (495) 134 44 45.

In August 2015 NLMK Kaluga, a new generation EAF plant (part of NLMK Long Products) that manufactures a wide range of long products used in construction, produced its second million tonnes of steel. The launch of NLMK Kaluga in July 2013 was the Event of the Year in Russian ferrous metallurgy. The plant is based on the mini-mill concept of locating EAF steelmaking and rolling operations in close proximity to sources of raw materials and consumers of finished goods.