VÍTKOVICE and EVRAZ VÍTKOVICE STEEL have reconciled and reached an agreement about services and oxygen supplies

OSTRAVA/PRAHA May 10^th, 2013 – The companies VÍTKOVICE and EVRAZ Vítkovice Steel have agreed to continue developing their business relationships. As a result, the managements of the two firms, the engineering-oriented VÍTKOVICE and the steel producer EVRAZ Vítkovice Steel, have signed contracts about the new supplies of services, including transport and industrial gasses. The agreement also calls for finding peaceful solutions to all disputes and issues of disagreement.

“The new contracts present solutions to all of the areas of dispute that lingered for years, including the supplies of secondary metallurgy for the steel mill,” said Jan Světlík, Chairman of the Board and CEO of VÍTKOVICE. He added that an agreement was also underway about further cooperation, mutual supplies, and coordinated action regarding major investments in Russia and the third world markets.

“I am happy that in these long and complicated negotiations, we maintained a pragmatic and purely business-oriented approach to the problems. In the end, this approach enabled us to find solutions acceptable for both parties. As a result, we will be able to concentrate only on future cooperation, which, unlike all disputes, has an added value, and is thus beneficial for both Vítkovice Group and EVRAZ Vítkovice Steel. This reconciliation definitively terminates the division and restructuring of the former greater Vítkovice,” says Dmitry Ščuka, CEO of EVRAZ Europe.

EVRAZ Vítkovice Steel showed interest in the services of the Testing Center, transport, maintenance, etc. The company also confirmed it would purchase oxygen and other industrial gasses from Vítkovice, as they are indispensable for the operations of the steel mill. The company Vítkovice has recently been quite concerned about the future of oxygen production and its thirty employees, whom the management would be forced to dismiss.

The oxygen plant has been put on “economy mode” until the end of April, meaning the company only produced for the engineering group and for sales to the Linde network. The oxygen plant was supposed to be shut down at the beginning of May. The new agreements, however, ensure its better operation instead and guarantee purchases from EVRAZ Vítkovice Steel until March 2015.

CONTACT:

Jaromír Krišica, spokesman EVRAZ VÍTKOVICE STEEL, +420 603 543 572
Eva Kijonková, Media Communication VÍTKOVICE MACHINERY GROUP, +420 721 857 097