ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the largest steelmaker in Ukraine, faced a shortage of coal and coke during August-September 2014. Supply of these raw materials gradually reduced because of the war in the Donbass and finally stopped. The plant had to switch to importing these raw materials, and this greatly influenced a change in ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih’s logistics.
Fortunately, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is part of a major international group, and this significantly helped us to quickly arrange quality imports, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih’s Chief Executive Officer Paramjit Kahlon said, the CFTS portal reports.
According to him, coke is delivered from Poland by rail. "Approximately 82,000 tons per month. This is a very high-quality product," said Kahlon. Coal is also delivered from Kazakhstan and partly from Russia. Coal from the United States is transshipped at the Odessa port.
"The steel plant also made trial delivery of one vessel of coke from China, but its quality did not suit us. Moreover, the logistics involved is very complex. Therefore, we decided to reject it," says said Kahlon.
"We give preference not to ports but railways because it allows gondola cars to be loaded at both ends. Trains loaded with our export products return with imported raw materials. Therefore, we import most of the raw materials from Poland and Romania," said Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Government Relations and External Communications Volodymyr Tkachenko.
"We give preference not to ports but railways because this allows gondola cars to be loaded at both ends"
The plant criticized the tariff policy of the State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia). "We believe that the sharp increase of railway tariffs is wrong. We favor a gradual increase," said Kahlon.
In addition to the railway, part of the plant’s export cargoes goes through its own port terminal in the Nikolayev region. ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih was forced to look for new markets - mainly south of the Black Sea - after the Russian market was essentially closed to the company in December 2014. In addition to our traditional markets in the Middle East and North Africa, we have exported a trial batch of 10,000 tons of wire rods to Saudi Arabia and we are looking for customers in the United States and West Africa, said Kahlon.
In addition to steel products, the company exports around 2 million tons of iron-ore concentrate (about 20% of the iron ore it produces in Ukraine) to foreign markets.
