Centravis Production Ukraine PJSC (Centravis Production Ukraine), a part of Centravis Ltd. holding, has brought its main production in Nikopol to full capacity and at the end of February officially opened its branch on tubes production in Uzhgorod.
“Now Centravis production is working at full capacity. All equipment is working, hot and cold shops,” wrote chief sales officer (CSO) Artem Atanasov in a letter to customers last Friday.
According to him, the company’s logistics team is constantly monitoring the safest ways to deliver finished products to customers. Worldwide sales offices operate in Essen, Milan, Krakow, Lugano, Houston and Dubai.
It is also reported that the new Centravis production site was officially opened in Uzhgorod on Feb. 28, with managers from Italy, Germany, Poland, the U.S. and the UAE, and local and regional authorities in attendance.
“This production site is just a part of our big team, as the main Centravis facilities remain in Dnipropetrovsk region. We are very happy that our production is developing and Ukrainian stainless seamless pipes are in demand all over the world,” – noted in the information of Director of Sales.
As reported, the holding Centravis Ltd. re-registered its parent company in Switzerland, having changed its Cypriot location, which will help to improve credit rating and attract longer and cheaper funds for the development of production in Ukraine.
“Centravis” earlier announced plans to open a specialized production of tool pipes for cars in Transcarpathia.
“Centravis” is among the ten largest manufacturers of seamless stainless steel tubes in the world. In 2022 the company has implemented a number of large-scale orders for such global companies as Benteler Automotive, LINSTER Edelstahlhandel, Rohr Mertel, Buhlmann Group, Webco, MRC. The company employs over 1400 people.
Centravis, founded in 2000, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of seamless stainless steel pipes. Its production facilities are located in Nikopol (Dnepropetrovsk region).
Holding Centravis Ltd was created on the base of Nikopol Stainless Tube Works CJSC, service and trade companies Industrial and Commercial Enterprise Yuvis Ltd. Its shareholders are members of the Atanasov family.
Centravis Ltd. owns 100% of shares of Centravis Production Ukraine PJSC.
Commodity output of Kyiv Cardboard and Paper Mill (Kyiv Cardboard and Paper Mill, Obukhiv, Kyiv Oblast), the industry leader in Ukraine, in January made UAH 625.54 million, which is 6.4% less than in prewar January 2022.
According to the statistics from UkrPapir Association, provided to Interfax-Ukraine news agency, the corrugated board production increased by 9.3%, to 17.12 mln sqm.
At the same time, cardboard production decreased by 7.6% – to 16.47 tons, including container board production increased by 15.6% to 14 thousand tons, while the production of cardboard boxes decreased by 2.3 times to 2.5 thousand tons.
Production of base paper for sanitary products decreased significantly – more than twice, to 3.6 thousand tons – while production of toilet paper in rolls halved to 16.6 million pieces.
According to statistics from the profile association, received from the branch enterprises, in January this year they produced 48.08 thousand tons of paper and paperboard – 24% less than in prewar January 2022, and 39.33 million square meters of cardboard boxes – 18.2% less.
Kiev KBC is one of the largest cardboard and paper companies in Europe, employing about 2.5 thousand people.
As it was reported, in 2022 the mill produced 7 billion 432 million UAH, which is 3.5% less than in 2021.
At the beginning of February this year, Yuriy Golovchenko, the former director of the recycled materials procurement department, was appointed the chairman of the board of Kyiv KBC JSC instead of Alexander Kravchenko, who had been chairing the board for half a year.
Pulp Mill Holding (Austria) owns 100% of the company.
PJSC “Ukrnafta” in 2023 plans to increase production of oil gas condensate by 6% compared to last year, the company’s director Sergiy Koretskyy said.
“We have set the task not just to keep the natural production decline, but to increase production already this year by 6%,” he wrote on his Facebook page, without specifying the expected volumes.
According to him, Ukrnafta plans to increase its drilling this year, an ambitious development strategy is being formulated, and goals for buying new licenses have been set.
Koretskyy noted that the company has passed compliance procedures of two state and one private bank, credit lines have already been opened for all three;
In addition, “Ukrnafta” is working on the return of multibillion hryvnia accounts receivable and expects that the optimization processes carried out in a short time will bring hundreds of millions of hryvnia savings in annual terms.
The budget for 2023 was formed with record targets for net profit, he said.
As reported, the Supreme Commanders of November 5, 2022 decided during martial law to withdraw to the state as the military property of the shares “Ukrnafta” (except for the controlling stake in NAK “Naftogaz of Ukraine”). Before the seizure, the structures of Ihor Kolomoyskyy and Hennadiy Boholyubov owned about 42% of Ukrnafta shares.
“Ukrnafta owns 85 special permits for production of hydrocarbons. On its balance sheet there are 1809 oil and 153 gas wells. The company owns 537 gasoline stations, of which 448 were operational at the beginning of February 2023. The rest were either damaged as a result of military operations or are located in the temporarily occupied territories.
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.
Last year Ukraine produced 1.13 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers, which is 4.6 times less compared to 5.2 million tons in 2021, while their import rose 3.1 times – to 4.3 million tons from 1.4 million tons, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine said on Facebook.
The Ministry specified with reference to the head of the analytical project “Infoindustry” Dmitry Gordeichuk that the volume of domestic production of nitrogen fertilizers in Ukraine before the full-scale Russian invasion exceeded imports due to continuous operation of plants “Rivneazot”, “Azot” North Donetsk Association and “Azot” Cherkasy, “Dniproazot” also worked with intervals.
However, according to him, with the beginning of the war only two plants “Rivneazot” and Cherkasy “Azot” remained working, while Severodonetsk “Azot” stopped working and was significantly damaged by the occupants. Such changes significantly changed the statistics on the market for the worse: as a result, only 1.13 million tons of fertilizers could be produced in 2022, the lack of which compensated for the import of 4.3 million tons.
“The topic of fertilizer shortage is one of the most urgent for the agricultural sector and Ukrainian farmers, because we are waiting for the spring sowing season, which the whole world will be watching. Ukraine is one of the leading countries on the agricultural map and its production volume determines the world price on the grain market and the food security of the world. Accordingly, the liquidity of farmers is a topical issue for the Ministry of Agrarian Policy” – quotes Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solskyy as saying.
According to the Minister, until July 2022 Ukrainian farmers were still able to buy fertilizers at pre-war prices, but in October the prices for ammonium nitrate rose from 27 thousand UAH / ton to 37 thousand UAH / ton, which created a critical situation for the Ukrainian farmers. He stressed that usually farmers are guided by the rule, according to which a ton of nitrate must not cost more than 2.5 tons of wheat and a ton of urea – not more than 3.0-3.5 tons of corn, while in 2022 these figures were exceeded two or three times.
Ministry of Agrarian Policy noted that today it is difficult to calculate the exact cost of fertilizers for modern Ukrainian agrarian, but the cost of basic nitrogen fertilizer per 1 ha of corn is approximately 8-9 thousand UAH without fertilizing and fuel costs, which have also increased in price. Therefore, the final amount is not attractive for the agrarian at the moment.
“Much depends on climatic conditions, because fertilizers work as a complex nutrition and the main thing is weather conditions. But if the agrarian will apply less fertilizer by 30% or more, then the drop in yield can be twofold. Therefore, support of international partners in this matter is very important to us, “- First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy Taras Vysotsky quotes it.
As previously reported, according to estimates of Group DF, the main fertilizer producer in Ukraine, the fertilizer market of the country in 2022 decreased by 45-50% – from 4.75 million tons to 2-2.9 million tons.
ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog PJSC (AMKR) Krivoy Rog Mining and Metallurgical Plant is hoping for an improvement in the power supply situation in the first half of this year and an increase in production from the current 25% to 50% of the plant’s capacity, the plant’s CEO Mauro Longobardo said.
“We can’t produce more than 25 percent because we don’t have enough energy. Once we have stable energy, we can increase production … and get to 50%,” he said on the sidelines of a business forum on the rapid recovery of Ukraine in Luxembourg, organized by the Ukrainian-Luxembourg Business Club.
Longobardo clarified that the company is currently operating at 25 percent for both ore and steel production, and consumes about 125 MW, compared to the pre-war normal consumption of about 450 MW.
The CEO also added that AMKR started importing electricity after the government’s recent decision and is now happy with the result, although the price of imports adds to the negative impact on the cost of production.
According to him, despite the low utilization rate, the entire team of 26,000 employees is retained, of which about 10,000 to 12,000 are employed in production depending on the day, but assistance is also provided to others. “We are investing in keeping all of our people during this year,” the general manager said.
He said that with an adequate power supply, a further 50 percent capacity limitation is already due to logistical problems. As Longobardo pointed out, AMKR is actively developing new routes alternative to the pre-war sea routes, but tentatively the new destinations to Poland and southern Ukraine will only allow for 50 percent production.
“We just need to test them when we have 50 percent available,” the general manager added.
According to him, without the resumption of work of the main ports of Ukraine, the combine will not be able to export products or provide imports of coal. Longobardo clarified that now AMKR works entirely on Ukrainian coal, as the work of the route of traditional coal imports from Kazakhstan from another “subsidiary” ArcelorMittal is currently interrupted.
At the same time, he stressed that there are other obstacles on the way to increasing production to 50%. First, Longobardo explained, the power supply must be reliable, since the plant has three blast furnaces, of which one is still operating. Going to 50% would mean working with two blast furnaces, since the third one is the largest, and a sudden stoppage of the furnace in case of power supply problems is fraught with damage.
The second major problem the general manager cited was rising production costs and logistics. “Cost is already killed. When I tell you logistics are possible, it’s true. But it’s $100 per ton more expensive than what I was paying before,” Longobardo noted.
He clarified that previously the transport shoulder to the port of Nikolaev was 250 km, there were also river deliveries, whereas now it is 1500 km to Gdansk and more costs for transshipment due to the different gauge in Ukraine and Europe.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest producer of rolled steel in Ukraine. It specializes in the production of long products, particularly rebar and wire rod.
As previously reported, in 2022, the plant reduced the output of rolled steel by 77% compared with the previous year – up to 1.1 million tons, steel – by 76.3% to 1.2 million tons, iron – by 71% to 1.6 million tons.
Iron ore production fell last year by 56%, to 11.6 million tons, and concentrate production fell by 57.2%, to 4.2 million tons.
