United Mining and Chemical Company PJSC (UMCP), managing Volnogorsky Integrated Mining and Metallurgical Works (VMMC, Dnepropetrovsk region) and Irshansky Integrated Mining and Processing Plant (IGOK, Zhitomir region), is holding active negotiations on sale of IGOK production to Western partners and plans to resume mining and concentration of ilmenite concentrate at this affiliate at 18 thousand tons per month by the end of this year.
According to the company’s press release, this was reported by Dmitry Kalandadze, member of the board of OGCC, during a visit to the enterprise by representatives of the Department of Corporate Rights of the State Property Fund (SPF).
“Irshanskiy GOK suspended its work in November last year. Now there are almost 54 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate and 100 thousand tons of rough concentrate in the company’s warehouses and ports. It has to be sold in order to start the production of new raw materials,” explained Kalandadze, who was quoted by the press service of the State Property Fund.
According to him, the company is now in active talks to sign new contracts to export products from Irshan field and hopes that in June the first shipments will begin, but at the same time is looking for the best conditions for the logistics of production to potential partners.
Currently IGOK on its own forces is engaged in repair of equipment, funds for renovation of which have not been invested for a long period, and is preparing to launch.
“Restoring product sales will allow us to gradually restore mining and beneficiation. We will be able to get back to work the part of IGOK’s employees who are currently idle and receive 2/3 of their salaries. That is a priority task for us. We are planning to reach the production level of 18 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate a month already by the end of this year. This is almost at the level of the plan we set at the beginning of 2022, before the war,” Kalandadze added.
The State Property Fund believes that the start of production at Zaporizhzhia Titanium and Magnesium Plant (ZTMP) may also have a positive impact on the activity of OGCC as a raw material supplier and therefore the options of how to resume the work of the titanium giant are already being considered.
At the same time, the SPF indicates certain problems with the launch of production at ZTMC – “first of all, it is the influence on the enterprise of the structures controlled by one of the Ukrainian sanction oligarchs”.
“Despite the fact that the enterprise has been returned to state ownership and is now de jure under the management of the Fund, we are constantly facing resistance from the previous owners. But we have a plan how to restore the production chain,” said Alexander Fedorishin, director of the Department of Corporate Rights of the State at the State Property Fund.
Now the SPF is also fighting hard to regain control of another state-owned titanium industry enterprise, Sumykhimprom, which the same oligarch’s structures drove to bankruptcy and continue to control, blocking privatization, as summarized in a press release.
The United Mining and Chemical Company began its actual operations in August 2014, when the Ukrainian government decided to transfer the property complexes of the Volnogorsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (VMMC, Dnipropetrovsk Region) and the Irshansk Mining and Processing Combine (IGOK, Zhitomir Region) to its management. Earlier these plants were leased by Firtash’s structures. Then the company was transformed into a PAO, and then – into a PrJSC.
In August 2016, the government put OGCC on the list of companies to be privatized in 2017. Its deadline was postponed several times, and the tender was twice thwarted.
Previously, OGHK sold products to more than 30 countries and was one of the world’s largest producers of titanium raw materials, accounting for 4% of the global market. The company produces titanium ore.
