Moscow’s Commercial Court ruled in favour of VTB in a case involving near-bankrupt mining giant Mechel.

      The metal producer was ordered to pay almost 3 billion roubles in debt to the country’s second-largest lender that issued a loan worth 43 billion roubles in 2010.

      Mechel announced it would appeal the court’s decision.

      The company is holding protracted negotiations with its creditors, and the verdict may prompt other banks, including Sberbank and Gazprombank to follow suit.

      Earlier, Russia-IC reported on the highlights of Mechel’s operational results.

      Sales of coking coal concentrate in the third quarter went down by 12% quarter-on-quarter due to weaker demand from Chinese consumers which was partly compensated by redirecting our supplies to Japanese and South Korean steelmakers. The lack of trade working capital had its impact too.

      High demand for coke products in all our markets served as an impulse for production growth at Mechel-Coke OOO and Moscow Coke and Gas Plant OAO, and, accordingly, a quarter-on-quarter 27-percent increase of coking coal concentrate supplies to these facilities.

      The 21-percent q-on-q decrease in PCI sales is primarily due to a weaker global market for metallurgical coals. We managed to maintain our anthracite sales on the previous quarter’s level due to increased supplies for Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s agglomeration facility.

      In 3Q2014, flat rolls sales went down by 9% quarter-on-quarter due to planned repairs at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s mill 2300.

      Sales of long rolls went down by 14% quarter-on-quarter due to planned repairs of Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s mill-300.

      “We are proud to announce that Elga Coal Complex has started to produce significant volumes of coal, with over 520,000 tonnes of run-of-mine coal mined in the third quarter alone, and that enabled the company to increase its overall coal output in the third quarter by 3% compared to the previous quarter,” said Mechel OAO’s Chief Executive Officer Oleg Korzhov.