Foundry: Recovery of the Market

Foseco is a world leader in supplies of a wide range of materials for ferrous and non-ferrous foundry. I. Kulish, Director for Sales, Foseco gave an interview to Metal Supply & Sales Magazine, General Information Partner of Metal-Expo.

- How do you estimate the pace of recovery of the Russian steel market from the global economic crisis as compared to the European market?
- Since we have been in the Russian market since 2004 we clearly see the dynamics of its development. I can speak with confidence about that post-crisis recovery of the market. For instance, our Russian representative considerably increased turnover last year. This year we plan to increase supplies 20—30% as compared to the last year.

- Do you plan to build facilities in Russia?
- Sure. Although it is still a long-term outlook, we have already bought land in the Nizhny Novgorod region for this purpose. We are not yet clear about the range of products we will manufacture in Russia.

- What new types of products did Foseco present at Metallurgy-Litmash’2011?
- Foseco always offers new types of products to its customers. At this trade show we offered the latest developments including new types of energy-saving crucibles, shafts and rotors for aluminium degassing plants, as well as new types of products for non-ferrous foundry etc.

- What in your opinion hinders mastering new types of products?
- I guess, there is certain inertness especially in the ferrous foundry. A long time, much longer then in Europe passes from the presentation of new materials to their production.

- How do you estimate modernization of Russian foundry plants?
-It depends on the plant. There are some large plants that are not altogether private and new technologies are not that much used there. While there are some smaller dynamically developing private ferrous and non-ferrous foundries that as a rule use the most up-to-date equipment and are quite aggressive in their development in the market. We are more interested in the latter of course.

РРS. Foundry technologies will be presented at Metal-Expo’2011, November 15-18, 2011, The All-Russian Exhibition Center, Moscow.