UPDATE 2-Novolipetsk Steel makes another quarterly loss

* NLMK (NLMK.MM) Q1 net loss $193.8 mln

* Q1 core earnings reached 196.7 mln

* Sees 2009 output 10 mln tonnes, down 5 percent yr/yr

* Shares off 7.7 pct in London

(Adds details, analyst comment, share price)

MOSCOW, June 2 (Reuters) - Russia's Novolipetsk Steel stayed in the red for the second straight quarter as forex losses and weak demand led to a first-quarter net loss of $193.8 million, compared with last year's $617.7 million net profit.

Russia's fourth-largest steel producer said on Tuesday that foreign exchange losses gouged $113 million from its bottom line, making it much wider than the $23 million loss forecast in a Reuters poll.

"In Q1 2009, market conditions in our core markets remained subdued, which, coupled with lower sales volumes, adversely impacted our financial results," Chief Financial Officer Galina Aglyamova said in a statement.

Steel makers in Russia, the world's fourth-largest steel producing nation, are posting sharply lower year-on-year results in the first quarter as lower world prices and domestic market weakness weigh on the sector.

Last month the nation's largest producer, Severstal (CHMF.MM), also posted its second consecutive quarterly loss, falling $644 million below the break-even point. [ID:nLF670439]

Novolipetsk, controlled by billionaire Vladimir Lisin, also said first quarter earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 77 percent year-on-year to $196.7 million, above the $190 million forecast.

Sales in the period dropped 45 percent to $1.29 billion, ahead of the $1.19 billion forecast.

Novolipetsk in March forecast first-quarter revenues of $1.1 billion and an EBITDA margin of 20 percent. [ID:nLO131297]

The company, also known as NLMK, did not provide any financial details on its outlook for the full year, though it reiterated that it expected "a significant year-on-year decrease in revenue, largely due to price environment deterioration."

For the current quarter, NLMK said it expected to achieve an EBITDA margin of 20 percent.

Analysts said the below-forecast net figure hurt the share price in Tuesday trade, and at 1458 GMT its London-listed global depositary shares were down 7.7 percent to $21.24.

PRODUCTION

Analysts also noted that the company's production figures were a positive surprise.

Novolipetsk said it would boost second-quarter production to 2.7 million tonnes of steel and achieve an annual output of 10 million tonnes, 5 percent below the 2008 result.

"What surprised me the most was that their Lipetsk facility is operating at 95 percent capacity," Morgan Stanley analyst Dmitriy Kolomytsyn said. "I was expecting it to be lower, but they are shipping a lot of slabs to (joint-venture partner) Duferco and to Southeast Asia and China."

The company's main production site is based in Lipetsk, and it is compensating for domestic market weakness by shipping slabs for rolling at Duferco's operations in western Europe while also boosting output to China and other southeast Asian nations.

China's Commerce Ministry has launched an anti-dumping investigation into Russian and U.S. imports of electrical steel, but analysts said it was too early to tell how this might affect NLMK, which is a major producer of such products. [ID:nPEK19932] (Reporting by Alfred Kueppers, editing by Will Waterman)