KYIV. Aug 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises in July 2016 boosted steel output by 10.5% compared to July 2015, to 2.065 million tonnes, climbing from 11th to 10th place in the ranking of the world’s 66 major steel manufacturers, compiled by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
A rise in steel production in July was recorded in most of the top ten countries, apart from the United States, Germany and Brazil.
The top ten steelmaking countries in July were as follows: China (66.807 million tonnes, a 2.6% increase), Japan (8.886 million tonnes, an increase by 0.5%), India (8.082 million tonnes, an increase by 8.1%), the United States (6.877 million tonnes, a decline by 2.2%), Russia (6.131 million tonnes, an increase by 0.9%), South Korea (6.009 million tonnes, an increase by 1.5%), Germany (3.393 million tonnes, a decrease by 6.1%), Brazil (2.705 million tonnes, a decrease by 6%), Turkey (2.661 million tonnes, an increase by 6.5%), and Ukraine (2.065 million tonnes, an increase by 10.5%).
In general, in July 2016, the 66 countries produced 133.742 million tonnes of steel, which was 1.4% up on July 2015.
The top ten steel makers in January-July 2016 included: China (466.516 million tonnes, a decline by 0.5%), Japan (60.935 million tonnes, a decline by 0.8%), India (54.958 million tonnes, an increase by 4.8%), the United States (46.932 million tonnes, a decline by 0.2%), Russia (41.398 million tonnes, a decline by 0.8%), South Korea (39.368 million tonnes, a decline by 2.7%), Germany (25.252 million tonnes, a decline by 2%), Turkey (19.152 million tonnes, an increase by 3.6%), Brazil (17.572 million tonnes, a decline by 12%), and Ukraine (14.477 million tonnes, an increase by 10.3%).
In general, the 66 countries produced 929.633 million tonnes of steel in the seven months of this year, which was 1.2% down year-over-year.
KYIV. Aug 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Mriya agroholding has started sowing winter crops for 2017 harvest and allocated around 93,000 ha for them.
The company said in a press release on Monday that as of August 21, over 50% of the planned volume of winter rapeseed had already been sown. The area allocated for this crop is approximately the same as last year – 20,000 ha.
Mriya is preparing the soil for other winter crops, primarily winter wheat, which will be sown on 70,000 ha. In addition, almost 1,000 ha will be sown with winter barley.
The company will also introduce winter rye into its crop rotation for the first time this year.
“We plan to sow the northern portion of our land with rye. The soil there is rather flinty, which makes it impossible to achieve good yields for other crops, for example wheat. Overall, we plan to sow 2,000 ha with rye,” Mriya COO Viktor Kukharchuk said.
Mriya plans to finish sowing winter rapeseed and move on to winter wheat by the end of August. The harvesting of early grain crops is also nearing its end; the company has already threshed over 320,000 tonnes of grain harvested on 84,000 ha.
KYIV. Aug 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Smart Energy has held the first auction for natural gas sale through the Fabrikant.ua online trading platform, the press service of the company has said.
“Some 6.4 million cubic meters of natural gas extracted in September has been sold through electronic trading. Some 13 candidates participated in the auction. The starting price amounted to UAH 6,000 (including VAT) per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. During the bidding the company successfully sold all the declared amount of gas. Other auction details, under the terms of the contract, cannot be disclosed,” a statement reads.
As reported, Smart Energy is the managing company in Smart-holding group responsible for the development of projects in hydrocarbon production and alternative energy.
The holding’s oil and gas segment includes Regal Petroleum, a British company with assets in Ukraine, as well as PJSC Ukrgazvydobuvannia and Prom-Energo Product LLC. The current stocks of Smart Energy’s gas producing assets under C1+C2 category are estimated at 39.7 billion cubic meters of gas and 4.5 million tonnes of condensate.
KYIV. August 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Nibulon agricultural company in 2015/16 agricultural year (July-June) increased grain exports by 14%, to 4.66 million tonnes of grain compared to the previous season.
According to a company report on its website, key crops for exports were corn (over 1.8 million tonnes), wheat (over 1.9 million tonnes) and barley (around 560,000 tonnes).
Geography of exports covered 28 countries, among which the largest consumers were Egypt (the share of total imports is 18.1%), Saudi Arabia (10.7%) and Spain (9.9%).
In 2015/16 agri-year Nibulon opened the Indonesian market. The company shipped around 295,000 tonnes of wheat to this country (6.5% of total exports).
Some 122 ships with an average size of a batch of 35,000 tonnes were used to export grain.
Nibulon was created in 1991. It is one of the largest operators in the grain market of the country. The company has elevators with a total capacity of more than 2 million tonnes, as well as own transshipment terminal in Mykolaiv.
KYIV. August 22 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s State Property Fund (SPF) has submitted a new bill on privatization aimed at its optimization and unification of procedures to Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, SPF Head Ihor Bilous said at a press conference in Kyiv last week.
He said that the document would increase the term for holding auctions from 45 to 180 days to give investors enough time to make decisions and avoid the preliminary appraisal. The appraisal will be formed during the sale of facilities based on trends on the market.
“There would not be privatization groups A, D, V, Zh, G and E – only large-scale and small-scale privatization,” Bilous said, adding that the only way to sell will be auction.
He said the procedures would be relaxed as much as possible for small-scale privatization to quickly sell non-liquid assets.
The bill annuls the pre-privatization preparation of enterprises by ministries. Heads of enterprises would be more responsible for safekeeping of the property when decisions to privatize enterprises are made, Bilous said.
KYIV. Aug 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia and Newag Group (Poland) signed a memorandum of cooperation to upgrade locomotives in Kyiv on August 17.
According to the press service of the Ukrainian company, the parties agreed to study the issue of creating locomotives and implementing solutions for their modernization. The realization of specific tasks will be carried out under separate contracts.
The next step in establishing cooperation will be consultations between technical experts.
“Ukrzaliznytsia intends to invest in rolling stock, therefore in recent years it has signed memorandums with the leading world producers. We are studying all proposals to objectively choose a partner who will provide the most attractive offer both economically and in terms of technology,” Ukrzaliznytsia Board Chairman Wojciech Balczun said.
In addition, according to him, one of the main requirements for the future partner is the willingness to use modern technology at the national production facilities.
Newag S.A. is a company based in Poland and specializing in manufacture, maintenance and modernization of rolling stock.
