Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works’ (MMK) representatives took part in the Second Congress of the Russian Steel Association on labour protection, industrial and environment safety held in Stary Oskol. MMK invests around RUB 2.5 billion in occupational safety every year.

The event was held on 10-11 September on the site of the Oskol Electrometallurgical Plant (belonging to Metalloinvest group). It brought together representatives from leading metallurgical companies and other sectors of the economy, such as scientific, educational and governmental bodies and other expert institutions.

Director for Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Protection Grigory Shchurov and Head of the Department for Labour Protection and Industrial Safety Alexei Beltyukov represented MMK at the forum. MMK has been successfully implementing a comprehensive programme to improve safety at work for a number of years, which has led to a significant reduction in injuries.

"Comparing statistics for injuries in 2019 to those for 2016, the numbers demonstrate the success of the measures taken to improve safety systems at MMK", AlexeyBeltyukov said during the forum. "The analytical indicator LTIFR (Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate), which is accepted internationally, has reduced by 15% for the specified period. The LTISR (Lost Time Injury Severity Rate) has reduced by 44%."

The Company implements extensive state-of-the-art automation and digitalisation tools in the field of labour protection and industrial safety. The digital module for incident management is amongst the Company's most innovative solutions. It collects and organises data on all incidents over a ten-year period. The programme's algorithm is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and it has no equivalent within the Russian metal industry.

Since 2018, MMK has been running a unique "School of Safety" training course across the country. The school presents an opportunity to develop skills in a practical environment related to carrying out work safely and efficiently in a variety of conditions (for example, at height). Last year the school trained over 4,000 workers.

The Company's strategic goal in the field of industrial safety and labour protection is to eradicate fatal accidents completely and to become an international leader among metallurgical companies in labour protection and industrial safety as measured by Key Performance Indicators. In 2017, MMK's actual expenditure on occupational health and safety amounted to RUB 2.2 billion; the year before it reached around RUB 2.5 billion.

About MMK

MMK is one of the world's largest steel producers and a leading Russian metals company. The company's operations in Russia include a large steel-producing unit encompassing the entire production chain, from the preparation of iron ore to downstream processing of rolled steel. MMK turns out a broad range of steel products with a predominant share of high-value-added products. In 2018, the company produced 12.7 mln tonnes of crude steel and 11.7 mln tonnes of commercial steel products. MMK Group had sales in 2018 of USD 8,214 mln and EBITDA of USD 2,418 mln.