Ukrainian industrial company Interpipe intends to increase supplies of pipes to Saudi Arabia and expand its presence in the Middle East.
According to the company’s Facebook post on Wednesday, Interpipe holds the economic front and continues to grow “no matter what.”
The other day, Interpipe, supported by its regular partner Al Sayed Center (ASCO), presented Ukrainian pipe products to construction companies and government organizations in Saudi Arabia, while informing them about the situation in Ukraine, the war, the company’s work in the new environment and the restructuring of supply chains.
Mr. Artem Artemov, Deputy Director for Middle East Sales, stated that Interpipe is well known in the macro-region as a supplier of quality pipes for the construction industry. Its products are used for air-conditioning systems, fire-fighting and as structural constructions.
“Saudi Arabia is one of the key countries for the company’s development and expansion in the region. We already have quite a history written over the past decade. Among the landmark projects in which Interpipe products have been used are the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, the King Abdulaziz International Airport near Riyadh, the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, and the construction of the King Abdullah International Airport near Riyadh. King Abdulaziz International Airport near Jeddah, Riyadh metro, buildings of Princess Nora bint Abdel Rahman University and King Fahd University of Oil and Minerals”, – noted Artemov, quoted by the press service.
It is specified that the business event was attended by 140 representatives of local construction and engineering companies, as well as the Ukrainian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Anatoly Petrenko.
“Let’s hold the economic front! Together we will overcome everything!”, the company’s information summarizes.
“Interpipe is a Ukrainian industrial company, producer of seamless pipes and railway wheels. The company supplies its products to over 80 countries all over the world via a network of commercial offices located in the key markets of the CIS, Middle East, North America, and Europe. The sales of railway products are carried out under the KLW brand.
Interpipe employs about 10 thousand people.
The company consists of five industrial assets: “Interpipe Nizhnedniprovsk Tube Rolling Plant (NTZ)”, “Interpipe Novomoskovsk Tube Plant (NMTZ)”, “Interpipe Niko Tube”, “Interpipe Vtormet” and the electric steelmaking complex “Dneprosteel” under the Interpipe Steel brand.
The ultimate owner of Interpipe Limited is Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk and his family members.
Oil prices are declining after rising about 4% in the previous two sessions.
“The market has taken a breather ahead of the Fed meeting,” believes Saxo Capital Markets Pte analyst Charu Chanana. She notes, however, that oil prices continue to be supported by factors such as lower production in Russia and a projected rise in fuel demand in China, Bloomberg reported.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday that Russia will extend the decision to reduce oil production by 500 thousand barrels per day until June 2023. In early February it was announced that in response to the introduction of the “ceiling” on oil prices from March its production will be reduced.
Quotes for May futures for Brent at London’s ICE Futures Exchange totaled $75 per barrel as of 7:09 a.m., down $0.32 (0.4%) from the close of the previous session. Those contracts rose $1.53 (2.1%) to $75.32 a barrel on Tuesday.
The price of WTI futures for May oil on the electronic trading on NYMEX fell by $0.33 (0.5%) to $69.34 per barrel on Wednesday morning. The contract value grew by $1.85 (2.7%) to $69.67 a barrel at the end of previous session.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s March meeting will be held amid heightened uncertainty as banking problems added to high inflation and low unemployment, analysts said.
The consensus forecast calls for a 25-basis-point hike in the benchmark rate. Rate futures quotes suggest that traders see about an 83% chance of such a move. At the same time, many economists, including representatives of leading Wall Street banks, withdrew their forecasts for a rate hike and now believe that the Fed will take a pause and not change the cost of borrowing.
The field hospital provided to Ukraine jointly by Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands as part of the third aid package has arrived in Ukraine, the Estonian Defence Investment Centre (ECDI) has reported.
It is noted that Norway and the Netherlands donated 7.8 million euros to send the field hospital to support Ukraine’s medical capacity.
“We transferred to Ukraine half of our Defense Forces’ existing field hospital, consisting of eight specialized medical containers, including a surgical, intensive care, intensive care, treatment and intermediate modules, medical storage, sterilization module and resource module,” said Kadi Kai Kollo, field hospital project manager at ECDI.
She noted that in addition to the usual parts of the hospital complex, storage containers, living module tents and a sanitary module with showers, toilets and washers and dryers were transferred to Ukraine.
In addition, ten MAN All Terrain Vehicles were provided by the Defense Forces to transport the wounded. The aid package also includes consumables for the hospital and training for the Ukrainian hospital team.
According to the ECDI, a trained team can deploy the hospital in about an hour. The speed of deployment of the field hospital provides mobility, which is very important for relocating medical care in a military conflict. Considering that about 950 medical facilities have been destroyed in Ukraine, according to various reports, such assistance is critical.
Under normal conditions, the field hospital employs about 15 people, and during the training period, it served about 60 people a day. The donated hospital will be used by Ukrainian army medics. To date, the two previously donated field hospitals have helped approximately 10,000 wounded.
The donated hospital was manufactured by the Estonian company Semetron, which designed the field hospital according to Ukrainian conditions. For example, heating and cooling equipment was modified for the Ukrainian climate, and tunnels connecting equipment and containers were upgraded.
The field hospital project was supported by the Netherlands and Norway for 7.8 million euros (3.5 million and 4.3 million respectively).
“The training was bilateral – we teach them, and the Ukrainian medical workers also teach us. Based on the experience from previous donations, we have already made changes to the training of our field hospital teams. In addition to technical training, we have added discussions on the possibilities of using the hospital in different configurations, for patients of different profiles, and the possibility of quickly integrating civilian sector specialists into the military hospitals. These lessons provided the Estonian Defence Forces’ medical department with a great opportunity to further develop the infrastructure of field hospitals and revise previous recommendations,” said Hele-Rith Lille, head of support and development at the Centre for War and Disaster Medicine of the Defence Forces.
Zaporizhstal Iron and Steel Works (Zaporizhstal) is taking its blast furnace (BF) No. 2 out of forced hot mothballing and will now operate three blast furnaces for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“BF No. 2 has been in hot mothballing mode since March of last year. The commissioning of the blast furnace was preceded by thorough work to ensure sufficient production with raw materials. Today we have such a solution, which will allow to increase production, and together with this to increase deductions to state budgets and attraction of currency proceeds to the national economy”, – convinced the general director of Zaporizhstal Roman Slobodyanyuk, who is quoted by the press service.
At the same time it is reminded that in April 2022 Zaporizhstal put two blast furnaces #3 and #4 into operation after the period of hot shutdown of production facilities. During the period of forced hot shutdown of BF No.2 the specialists of Blast Furnace Shop and Engineering Services of Zaporizhstal performed a comprehensive study, maintenance and repair of the main units of the blast furnace. In particular, deep revision of mechanical and electrical equipment of the blast furnace and its air heaters has been performed, technical inspection and testing of gas cleaning equipment of the blast furnace has been carried out to ensure reliability of the unit operation in accordance with the current environmental protection legislation.
Blast furnace BF-2 is currently being blown out. The blast furnace will reach its planned production capacity in the first decade of April. By adding three blast furnaces, the daily productivity of Zaporizhstal Blast Furnace Shop will increase up to 8000 tons of iron.
Blast Furnace No.2 was taken out for hot shutdown in March 2022, as part of the forced shutdown of the enterprise due to the escalation of hostilities in the region.
As it was reported, in 2M2023 “Zaporizhstal” reduced shipment of rolled steel by 65.3%, compared to the same period last year – up to 174.2 thousand tons, steel output during this period decreased by 67.4% – to 209.2 thousand tons, iron – by 61.5%, to 291.6 thousand tons.
“Zaporizhstal” in 2022 reduced the output of rolled steel by 60.4% compared to 2021 – to 1 million 304.3 thousand tons, steel by 61.7% – to 1 million 491.3 thousand tons, cast iron – by 54.3%, to 2 million 9.9 thousand tons.
“Zaporizhstal is one of the biggest industrial enterprises in Ukraine, which products are in great demand among the consumers on the internal market and in many countries of the world. The plant specializes in high-quality carbon and low-alloy steel coils, hot-rolled plates, cold-rolled sheets, cold-rolled coils, as well as steel straps, tin plates, formed sections.
Main consumers are producers of welded pipes, enterprises of automotive, transport, agricultural engineering, producers of household appliances.
“Zaporizhstal is in the process of integration into Metinvest Group the main shareholders of which are CJSC “System Capital Management” (71.24%) and Smart Holding group of companies (23.76%).
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
Insurance companies “Unique” and “Unique Life” (both Kiev), which are part of non-banking financial group “Unique Ukraine”, in February 2023 paid 109.69 million UAH of insurance claims.
As reported on the web-site of IC “Unique”, according to car insurance contracts the total sum of insurance payments has made UAH 47,2 million, from which UAH 37,2 million – as CASCO payments, UAH 10 million – as MTPL and VGOGO payments.
The total sum of payments according to the contracts of voluntary medical insurance amounted to UAH 41,46 mln. The amount of payments on life insurance was UAH 9,95 mln.
The highest payout in February was for UAH 1,18 mln. on the KASKO insurance contract.
Medical assistance “Unica” during this reporting period handled more than 92.8 thousand applications, the technical assistance – more than 13.151 thousand, stated in the message.
UNIQA Group (Austria) entered the market of Ukraine in 2006. Its companies in Ukraine – “Unique” and “Unique Life” with central offices in Kiev, offer most types of risk and life insurance through a nationwide network.
NNEGC Energoatom President Petr Kotin and British Rolls-Royce SMR director for cooperation with partners Sophie McFarlene-Smith signed a memorandum of understanding on March 20 that envisages the construction of a power plant with small modular reactor (SMR) in Ukraine.
“Under the memorandum, Rolls-Royce SMR is committed to supporting Ukraine’s recovery by deploying a plant-based small modular reactor (SMR) power plant that will be capable of generating enough carbon-free electricity to supply a million homes for more than 60 years,” Energoatom said in Telegram on Tuesday.
Overall, the document provides an opportunity for the companies to work together to find future opportunities to deploy Rolls-Royce SMR small modular reactors (SMRs) in Ukraine as it begins to recover.
“Cooperation between Energoatom and Rolls-Royce SMR has reached a new level. Today we have signed an agreement that will give Ukraine the opportunity not only to start a high-quality post-war reconstruction of power infrastructure, but also to become one of the first countries in the world to attract promising small modular reactor technology to do so,” Kotin was quoted by the company as saying.
For his part, as Rolls-Royce SMR CEO Tom Samson noted, the British government supports Ukraine and its citizens.
“With Britain’s own nuclear technology, we can potentially help the people of Ukraine recover quickly and restore energy security and independence,” he stressed.
As reported, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said last week Ukraine plans to build up to 20 SMRs as part of a “green transition” to replace the thermal generation units destroyed during the war
In turn, Petro Kotin, president of NNEGC Energoatom, said that SMRs are very promising for Ukraine and at the moment the nuclear specialists jointly with the Ministry of Energy are developing many programs with different world companies which develop technology of small modular reactors.
In particular, Energoatom is currently cooperating in the SMR direction, in addition to the British Rolies Royce, also with the American Westinghouse offering its AP-300 reactor, NuScale and Holtec International, as well as with a couple more companies with which memorandums have been signed.
