Russian steel producer Severstal has announced that production restarted on Friday, February 15 at its Vorkutinskaya mine following last week's explosion, except for one affected area where production will remain suspended for 90 days as dictated by the Russian Federal Service for Environmental, Technical and Nuclear Supervision.
Normal production has resumed across the rest of the mine. During the mine's downtime, experts examined the mine tunnels to ensure that they are in full accordance with the highest standards of health and safety. As previous report, an explosion occurred at the Vorkutinskaya mine of Severstal's mining subsidiary Vorkutaugol in Russia's northern Komi region on February 11. 18 workers were reported dead. The Vorkutinskaya mine started production in 1973 and has an annual coking coal production capacity of 1.8 million mt.