The restoration and restart of Metinvest’s metallurgical plants in the besieged city of Mariupol is quite real, says Ilyich’s Steelwrks general director Taras Shevchenko in comments confirmed by the company to Kallanish.
“We do not have a complete picture of the damage to the plants, but there is damage and broken infrastructure,” he said to Ukraine 24. “However, I am sure that as soon as the metallurgists from Mariupol have the opportunity to get to our beloved city and our enterprises, we will definitely be able to restore and put into operation our metallurgical plants. This task is quite real.”
According to him, the nature of the actions of the Russian army in Mariupol and in Ukraine in general is clearly a deliberate, systematic destruction of industry and cities of Ukraine.
“In particular, in Mariupol, two metallurgical plants were destroyed – Azovstal and Ilyich, and the city itself,” he adds.
Last week, Russian Ministry of Defence representative Igor Konashenkov claimed that Moscow’s forces and units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) had completely seized Ilyich Steelworks in Mariupol (see Kallanish passim). Metinvest did not confirm that claim.
On Tuesday, the head of DPR Denis Pushilin announced his intention to resume production at the Ilyich steel plant, he said on Russian tv Russia 1. He added that “now the territory of the plant is being protected, and the damage is being assessed.”
“We plan to conduct an assessment now and to renovate the plant – it should work, because the products produced there are in demand now,” Pushilin said and announced his intention to modernize the production.
Earlier, the Metinvest Group stated that its companies in Mariupol would never operate under Russian occupation.
Metinvest flat steelmaker subsidiary Zaporizhstal started pig iron smelting, after the restart of blast furnaces No. 3 and No.4, the company says. In the future, it is planned to gradually restore production processes at the steelmaking and rolling departments.
So far, three of the six sinter production plants have been launched.
Now all the efforts of the plant are aimed at updating logistics for the continuous receipt of raw materials and shipment of products, Zaporizhstal claims.
Svetoslav Abrossimov Bulgaria
