Evraz Group SA, 36 percent owned by billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, said steel demand is rising at most of its foreign operations and pipe orders may lead to the restart of an idled U.S. plant.

The company, Russia’s second-largest steelmaker, is “working on” pipe orders for 2010 in North America that may prompt the restart of Evraz’s 200,000-ton-a-year factory in Portland, Oregon, Senior Vice President Pavel Tatyanin, who oversees the company’s businesses outside Russia, said in an interview. The facility was idled in July.

“Our South African steel mill is currently operating at the highest capacity in 10 years,” Tatyanin said. Evraz’s Italian steel-plate mill has been working at full capacity since May and has sold all its November output, he added.

The collapse in commodity prices in the past year has left Evraz posting a first-half net loss while holding $8.5 billion of debt that it amassed buying steel plants in the U.S., Europe and Africa. Evraz may have to renegotiate terms with lenders, Standard & Poor’s said last month.

Demand for vanadium, which Evraz produces in South Africa and the U.S., will probably grow faster than steel as emerging economies buy more of the steel additive, Tatyanin said Oct. 28 in Moscow, where the company is based. Foreign operations make up about 75 percent of Evraz’s revenue, he said.