Arcelor Mittal Kryviy Rih boosts coke production

On June 26 Arcelor Mittal Kryviy Rih started drying and warming up its 0.55mtpy coking plant No.3. The process will take 73 days. Plant No.3 was constructed together with plant No.4 of the same capacity. The latter was put into operation in January 2006. Investments in the project amount to UAH1 bn in the aggregate. It is planned that in 2007 plant No.4 will produce 540,900t of coke, No.3 plant – 267,000t. As a result, the total output will rise by 28.8% y-o-y, to 3.47mt.
The growth of own coke producing capacities will help to decrease substantially the producer’s dependence on the coke import. In 2006, after the owner was changed, the company increased the import of coke from Mittal’s affiliates in Poland. In 2006, the imports totalled 924,000t against 132,000t in 2005. Since the beginning of 2007 the imports have been tending to increase. In January-May coke imports increased by 20% y-o-y to 465,000t. Considering the expansion of own coke producing capacities, the purchases of Polish material will have decreased by the end of the year. Accordingly, the producer will keep increasing coking coal consumption (during 5 months coal purchases (including imports) grew by 8% to 1.64mt).

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