State-owned enterprise (SOE) Skhidny (Eastern) Mining and Processing Plant (Dnipropetrovsk region) in January-September 2019 cut production of uranium concentrate by 14.9% year-over-year, to 684.8 tonnes, according to information on the unified government portal of open data.
According to the enterprise, 72.6 tonnes of uranium concentrate were produced in January, 93.7 tonnes in February, 84.3 tonnes in March, 72.9 tonnes in April, 52.2 tonnes in May, and 80 tonnes in June, in July – 72.2 tonnes, in August – 84 tonnes, and in September – 72.9 tonnes.
As reported, Skhidny Mining in 2018 increased the production of uranium concentrate 41.1% compared to 2017, to 1,179.5 tonnes.
Skhidny Mining is the only uranium ore mining and processing enterprise in Ukraine and the largest in Europe. The annual needs of Ukrainian nuclear power plants for uranium concentrate are about 2,400 tonnes, while its production by Skhidny Mining is about 1,000 tonnes.
Large ferroalloy enterprises of Ukraine – Nikopol and Zaporizhia Ferroalloy plants – in 2018 totally increased production by 0.8% compared with 2017, to 1.035 million tonnes.
The Ukrainian Association of Ferroalloy Manufacturers told Interfax-Ukraine that over the period silicon-manganese production grew by 6%, to 859,640 tonnes, while ferromanganese output fell by 30.6%, to 79,480 tonnes.
In addition, production of ferrosilicon (45% concentrate) fell by 18.8%, to 75,440 tonnes, and manganese metal – by 2.4%, to 7,460 tonnes.
Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant also produced 13,150 tonnes of other ferroalloys, while in 2017 it was 1,410 tonnes (a 9.3-fold rise).
The country’s two manganese concentrate producers, the Pokrovsky (formerly Ordzhonikidze) and Marhanets mining and beneficiation plants, produced 1.522 million tonnes of manganese concentrate in 2018, which is 6.8% more than in2017.
Marhanets mining and beneficiation plant produced 570,440 tonnes of concentrate (a rise of 4.6%) and Pokrovsky mining and beneficiation plant made 951,460 tonnes (a rise of 8.2%). In addition, the latter produced 196,600 tonnes of manganese sinter(21.3% up year-over-year).
