Russian steel producer Evraz increased roll production 0.6% year-on-year to 9.22 million tons in January-September 2005, Evraz said in a statement.

Crude steel production fell 0.1% year-on-year to 10.21 million tons in the same period, the company said.

Production of pig iron fell 0.7% to 8.5 million tons, however production grew 17% to 2.11 million tons of iron ore concentrate, 20.7% to 6.73 million tons of sinter and 101.8% to 3.77 million tones of iron ore pellets.

The group also mined 347,000 tons of coking coal and 38,000 tons of power-generating coal in the nine months.

Evraz Group S.A., which produced 13.7 million tons of crude steel in 2004, controls the Nizhny Tagil, West Siberian and Novokuznetsk iron and steel works in Russia.