ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih PJSC (AMKR, Dnipropetrovsk oblast) has cut production of metallurgical coke at its coke-chemical division by 68.1% in 2022 compared with the previous year – to 922 thousand tons.
A company representative told Interfax-Ukraine news agency that in December the company produced 41,000 tonnes of metallurgical coke.
At the same time in 2022 the gross coke output at AMKR amounted to 1.060 mln tonnes, including 47 thnd tonnes in December.
Coke production at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih for 2021 increased by 9.2% to 2.890 million tonnes, including 250 thousand tonnes produced in December.
In 2022 the company supplied over 1.4 million tonnes of coal concentrate, including 469 thousand tonnes of domestically mined coal, 390 thousand tonnes from Russia (pre-war), 65 thousand tonnes from Kazakhstan, 54 thousand tonnes from Poland, 15 thousand tonnes from the Czech Republic, 218 thousand tonnes from the USA and 192 thousand tonnes from Australia. In December, the AMKR supplied 108,000 tons of coals, including 72,000 tons from domestic production, 21,000 tons from Poland, 11,000 tons from the United States and 4,000 tons from Australia.
As Ukrainian coke plants reported, in 2022 the production of gross coke with 6% moisture decreased by 59% compared to the previous year, to 3.91 million tons, including 3.354 million tons of metallurgical coke. In 2022, 4.594 million tonnes of coal concentrate were supplied to the domestic CCPs, including 3.158 million tonnes produced in Ukraine.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest producer of rolled steel in Ukraine. It specializes in the production of long products, in particular rebars and wire rod.
ArcelorMittal owns Ukraine’s largest mining and metallurgical plant, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of smaller companies, in particular ArcelorMittal Beryslav PJSC.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has arrived in Kiev and is expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the Dutch broadcaster NOS has reported.
According to the newspaper, in the morning, Rutte visited the Wall of Remembrance for those killed in Ukraine near Mykhaylivska Square and laid a wreath. The NOS report is illustrated with photos of the wreath-laying ceremony in Kiev.
Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Lissier Schreinemacher also arrived in the Ukrainian capital. According to the publication, after the meeting with Zelenskyy, Rutte and Schreinemacher will visit Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
The Ukrainian media also publish a photo with Rutte in winter Kyiv.
The last time Rutte visited Kiev was in July 2022.
The authorities of Amsterdam, meeting the wishes of the citizens, are tightening the rules for the use of drugs and alcohol on the streets, which have long attracted visitors with its freedom of morality.
In May, cannabis smoking will be banned outdoors in the Red Light District due to complaints from residents who are disturbed by the mess made by tourists. In addition, sex workers will begin to stop working and close their establishments at 3 a.m. Also from 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays restaurants and bars will be closed and from 1 am will be stopped to let new visitors in the quarters of the Old Town of Amsterdam.
So far, the sale of alcohol in the red-light district is prohibited from four in the morning from Thursday to Sunday. In addition the authorities will now require the owners of the stores at this time to remove alcohol from the windows, and in general from sight. It is already illegal to drink alcohol in most public places in Amsterdam.
Current Dutch law criminalizes the possession, production and sale of drugs. However, law enforcement authorities do allow cannabis to be sold in coffee shops, subject to strict rules. In particular, these establishments must not disturb public order and do not attract foreign drug dealers.
In addition, the Amsterdam city council will launch a campaign in the spring aimed at discouraging tourists from the city who come here specifically for alcohol, drugs and sex.
Foreign aid as of February 15 accounted for 68.8% of sources of financing of the state budget deficit since the beginning of this year, Roksolana Pidlasa, head of the Verkhovna Rada Budget Committee, told Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday.
“If we compare with last year, we see an increase in the share of foreign aid in the sources of financing. This is primarily due to the fact that, unlike last year, the National Bank does not redeem government bonds, therefore, emission funds are not attracted to cover the state budget deficit, “- said the head of the Committee.
Pidlasa specified that the state budget has already received UAH 171.9 billion from international partners. The biggest share is constituted by the macro-financial credit aid from the EU (EUR 3 billion) and grant aid from the USA ($1 billion).
“At the same time, the government continues to issue war bonds – debt obligations, which constitute about 31% of all sources of budget financing,” the MP added.
As reported, the state budget deficit of Ukraine in January 2023 due to a significant reduction in spending decreased to 72.3 billion UAH from 99 billion UAH in December, including for the general fund – to 78.9 billion UAH from 101.3 billion UAH.
Cash expenditures of state budget, according to operational data of State Treasury, in January fell to 193.7 billion UAH, including the general fund – to 183.6 billion UAH, or 80.6% of the estimates, while the general fund revenues amounted to 104.4 billion UAH, of which 36.6 billion UAH – grant international aid.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the actual state borrowings to the general fund of the state budget in January 2023 amounted to UAH 160.1 billion, or 54.7% of the plan, including UAH 41.4 billion from placement of government bonds, of which UAH 2.6 billion in foreign currency ($40.2 million and EUR29.4 million).
EUR 3 bln were financed from external sources due to the EU tranche of macrofinancial aid.
The state budget of Ukraine for 2023 was approved with a marginal deficit of UAH 1296.5 billion, including the general fund deficit of UAH 1124.6 billion.
Never before has the work of two famous Catalans, the painter Salvador Dali and the architect Antoni Gaudi, appeared before the audience in such a stunning way as it has been presented by the French operator of immersive exhibitions for historical monuments, museums and art centers Culturespaces.
“Dali, the Infinite Enigma” and “Gaudi, Architect of the Imaginary” are two new immersive exhibitions that run from February 2023 to January 2024 in Bordeaux at the unique Pools of Light exhibition space.
The exhibition about Dali presents more than 60 years of work by the epathetic Catalan master, one of the most enigmatic painters in history, graphic artist, sculptor, filmmaker and writer. Developed under the influence of Cubism and Futurism, who became an iconic figure in Surrealism, Dali came to a carefully executed realism on canvas, about which it was said that the real was nevertheless muddled with mysteries of the mind, fantasies and allusions of memories.
While exploring the exhibition, the viewer walks in digital visions as an accomplice among the metaphysical landscapes and images of an artist with an inimitable imagination. Paintings, drawings, photographs, installations, film footage, details of works, coming alive on the walls, reflected in the water of “Pools of Light”, of course, do not solve the mystery, but still bring us closer to the mysteries of the personality of the artist with the original mustache, to his obsession with the strange, and to the passion that his muse and wife, Gala, inspired him.
Everything takes place to the music of the legendary British band Pink Floyd, offering a timeless journey that awakens the subconscious.
One of Dali’s important sources of inspiration was the work of the architect Gaudi, whose early twentieth-century works were considered provocative and often criticized. Dali was a staunch defender of the visionary Gaudí. A second fascinating exhibition at Pools of Light pays tribute to this architectural genius and his famous buildings, which have now been classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The visitor of the exhibition is immersed in another journey in which it is difficult to distinguish between the imaginary and reality. He walks through Barcelona from Park Güell to the Casa Batlló, entering the Casa Milà and visiting the inimitable wonder of the Sagrada Familia. The faceless construction of the Pools of Light suddenly takes on the outlines of hyperbolic vaults, fanciful columns, wavy facades, covered with ornaments and Gaudi’s invariably pleasing glass and ceramic mosaics.
Culturespaces was created in 1990 by Bruno Monnier. In 2020, Culturespaces opened a “digital art center” in Bordeaux, considered to be the largest in the world. It is housed in the hulks of a former Italian and German submarine base built in 1941-1943 in France occupied during World War II.
It is another story under the slogan “from the atrocities of war to the pinnacles of art.
After the war there was the question of what to do with this gigantic bunker of 600,000 cubic meters of concrete. For decades it stood abandoned. In 1990 a failed attempt was made to convert it into an international museum for pleasure boats, which were placed inside the base. But the public was not interested. And the concrete structures once again fell into oblivion. Until 2020.
Then Culturespaces people showed up at the former military base, and it became known as Pools of Light. The Digital Art Center took over four of the existing eleven pools. Immersive exhibitions are projected on 12,000 square meters of the base. Since the Pools of Light opened, it has already hosted digital exhibitions by artists Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Venetian art, and a number of other exciting educational projects have taken place within the walls built for mass murder techniques.
The Ukrainian Grain Association (UZA) called on the world community, Turkey and the UN to oppose the Russian seizure of the Black Sea and the establishment of restrictions on navigation for other countries.
“UZA considers it necessary to note that the Black Sea is not an internal sea of Russia, where it can dictate to other countries requirements to navigation. Russia’s purposeful actions to delay inspections of ships bound for Ukrainian ports to load grain and other food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative demonstrate Russia’s real intentions to continue destabilizing global food security and turning food into weapons,” according to the organization’s website.
UZA stressed that because of Russia’s deliberate delay in inspecting ships, a queue of more than 140 ships has formed in the Bosphorus, with the vast majority waiting their turn for more than a month. Thus, the food security of the countries that depend on the export of Ukrainian food products was threatened.
In addition, the Russian Federation, despite military aggression, attacks on Ukrainian ports and restriction of navigation in Ukrainian seaports, continues to enjoy unimpeded commercial passage of its vessels from Russian Black Sea ports.
“The involvement of the Russian side in the inspection of vessels going to Ukrainian ports (which it deliberately and intentionally delays) and at the same time the absence of inspections of vessels sailing from Russian ports in the Azov-Black Sea basin is nothing but rewarding the aggressor and restricting navigation in international waters of the Black Sea in its favor,” – stated in a statement of the association.
“Moreover, the inspection of Russian vessels in the Bosphorus is not carried out, which makes it possible for it to use merchant ships to transport military cargo to continue the war against Ukraine and blackmail other states,” UZA added.
As a result, the association calls on the world community, the UN and Turkey not only to encourage Russia to stop delaying the movement of ships under the Istanbul grain initiative and stop using food as weapons, but also to begin work to restore free navigation in the Black Sea for all countries, in particular free commercial shipping to Ukrainian ports of the Black Sea.
As reported, on February 15, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleby and Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction of Ukraine – Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov called on the international community, in particular the UN and Turkey as guarantors of the Black Sea grain initiative to demand the Russian Federation to immediately stop artificial delays in the grain corridor and unblock commercial shipping to Ukrainian ports of the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian side notes that Russian representatives in the inspection teams under the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul have been systematically delaying for several months in a row the inspection of vessels passing through the Bosporus Strait to/from Ukrainian ports.
In particular, Russian inspectors are slowing down inspections, regularly demanding unregulated documentation, refusing to work during working hours, and looking for other unreasonable reasons to stop inspections. Typically, fewer than half of the 10 inspections scheduled each day occur.
It is emphasized that such destructive policy of Russia has led to a systematic reduction of cargo turnover in the framework of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. In the past three months alone, the world has under-received 10 million tons of Ukrainian food.
