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Key environmental indicators

Key environmental indicators

NLMK Group is one of the most advanced steelmaking companies in the world in relation to the environment. NLMK is committed to consistent efforts to minimize its environmental impact and achieving best-in-class environmental performance.

Since 2000, NLMK invested 2,5 billion dollars bn in its environmental projects. Since then, the output has almost doubled and the company became the largest steel producer in Russia. Adoption of new state-of-the-art technologies alongside a major equipment upgrade significantly reduced the Group’s environmental footprint.

RUB 130 billion invested in the environment at the NLMK’s flagship site in Lipetsk since 2000.

Starting from 2004, NLMK Lipetsk has stopped accumulating waste and begun a systematic effort to process it.

The rate of secondary resource recycling at NLMK Lipetsk has reached 99.8%.

Recycling of secondary resources, %

Investment in NLMK Group environmental projects, $ m

Today, NLMK Group has halved its specific atmospheric emissions, achieving the level of best available technologies. Since 2000, the gross emissions into the atmospheric air in the company as a whole have decreased by 18%, subject to a 2-fold increase in steel production.

These results were made possible by a set of management activities and investment projects. The measures include production line overhauls, installing high-efficiency dust and gas cleaning units, mounting or modifying filtering equipment, as well as introducing technologies for secondary resource neutralization, capture, and utilization in the production loop.

NLMK Group specific air emission trend, kg per tonne of steel

NLMK gross air emission trend

NLMK implemented a comprehensive programme to reduce hydrogen sulphide emissions

The Company invested over RUB 10 billion in its initiative to reduce hydrogen sulphide emissions at the production site. Upon implementation of all measures, not a single excess of hydrogen sulfide standards was recorded from NLMK sources. As a result, the site stopped facing complaints about the smell of hydrogen sulfide from its sites, and concentration of this substance in Lipetsk has been cut in half.

NLMK Group is one of the industry leaders in terms of water use efficiency and minimal negative impact on water basins in the regions of its operation due to the adoption of advanced environmental technologies.

Specific water consumption (difference between water use and water disposal) has been consistently reduced reaching 2.1 m³/t in 2024.

Most NLMK Group businesses use closed-circuit water supply systems. NLMK Lipetsk, Altai-Koks, VIZ Steel, NLMK Kaluga, Stoilensky, NLMK Ural, NLMK Metalware, NLMK DanSteel, NLMK Indiana, NLMK Pennsylvania, NLMK Sharon Coating, NLMK Verona, NLMK Clabecq and NLMK La Louvière have introduced water recycling systems both local for individual facilities and plant-wide. This serves to reduce fresh water intake and industrial waste water discharge into surface water bodies.

The share of recycled water supply in NLMK Group remains at a consistently high level of over 97%.

Over the last 45 years, the intake of water from the Voronezh River by the Group’s main site in Lipetsk has been reduced by a factor of 10.

Water intake from the Voronezh River, million m³

The previous Strategy 2023 goal to reduce the discharge of pollutants into water bodies by 25% across NLMK Group has been attained in 2021.

In 2020 NLMK Lipetsk completed a project to upgrade its municipal waste water treatment facilities with an investment of RUB 118 million.

Dynamics of pollutants entering water bodies with effluents across NLMK Group, kt

In 2024, Stoilensky increased its discharge due to the expansion of the dam and a redistribution of flows into the site’s tailings storage facility. However, the increase was kept within the limits stated in the applicable permits and standards.
The entire volume of water disposal is monitored for compliance with the established standards. NLMK Group has not had any excess payments for wastewater since 2019.
The Company voluntarily implements projects aimed at reducing the impact on water resources, exceeding the requirements established by the legislation. NLMK Group is working towards a complete elimination of used water discharge.

State-of-the-art technologies for the recycling of secondary resources, as well as various recycling initiatives, enable efficient use of secondary resources. In 2024, the share of Fe-containing raw materials recycled by NLMK Group companies totalled 100.4%, excluding mining waste.

Over the past 20 years, specific waste generation across the Group as a whole has decreased by a factor of 7 while production has doubled.

In 2020, NLMK Lipetsk fully recycled its slag dump, with a total weight of over 5 million tonnes of secondary resources accumulated since the 1970s.

More than 300,000 tonnes of Fe was recovered and reused in steel production. Around 25 hectares of usable area have been recovered for commercial use.