MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. Evraz entered into an agreement to sell its wholly-owned subsidiary Evraz Stratcor Inc. (Arkansas, US) to a third party in July 2019, Russia’s mining and steel company said in its 1H financial report released on Thursday.
"The group expects that the sale of this subsidiary will not have a significant impact on the group’s consolidated financial statements," Evraz said.
Stratcor produces up to 12 mln pounds of vanadium oxide per year. Part of produced oxide is converted into vanadium-aluminum used in jet aircraft and other aerospace applications. Moreover, vanadium oxide is converted into many specialty products for the production of chemicals, petrochemicals, gases, and storage batteries.
Evraz bought a major interest in the company — around 73% — in 2006 for $110 mln. Following the transaction to sell the US-based asset, Evraz will have two more vanadium facilities — Evraz Vanady Tula, the largest European producer of vanadium pentoxide, and Evraz Nikom in the Czech Republic that converts the vanadium oxide produced by Vanady Tula into ferrovanadium, the major vanadium product used by the steel industry to increase strength and hardness.
Evraz is one of the world’s major vertically integrated steel and mining companies with assets in Russia, the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Kazakhstan. In 2018, its output stood at 13.02 mln tonnes of steel.
Acquisition of the British Steel’s French factory
Russia’s mining and steel company Evraz considered the acquisition of British Steel's rail factory in France, but abandoned the idea, Chief Executive Officer Alexander Frolov told reporters on Thursday.
"As for the rail factory, indeed we considered the asset, but did not find it interesting for us," he said, adding that the asset would suggest "quite considerable transport costs."