Metinvest Italian mills secure Europe, Asia slab supply

Metinvest’s Italian plants are receiving slab feedstock for rolling from European, Asian and Latin American suppliers, says the company’s general director, Yuriy Ryzhenkov.

“Semi-finished products are also coming from Zaporizhzhia, where one of the group’s assets – the Zaporizhstal plant – is located,” he noted in an interview with Ukraine’s NV newspaper. “Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the company’s Italian enterprises received slab from Azovstal in Mariupol, which now is occupied.”

According to Ryzhenkov, the enterprise is now buying slab in Southeast Asia, looking at Brazilian slab and also purchasing European slab, including from Acciaierie di Italia. Negotiations are also underway with US Steel Kosice and Liberty Steel, he adds. “We are looking for slab in small batches,” Ryzhenkov observes.

The process of setting up production of slab is still ongoing at Zaporizhstal. “This is a rolled slab, but we already have the first successes. We make an ingot from converter steel at Kametstal; after that we roll it into a slab at Zaporizhstal,” he explains. The slab then goes to European units for rolling.

In addition, Ryzhenkov talked about the situation with the supply of coke to Ukrainian plants. Following the shutdown of the Avdiive coke plant, Metinvest is using other available capacities for its production. In particular, there are two plants in Kamiansk and one in Zaporizhzhia.

“There are two more coke plants, where we deliver our coal for processing – ArcelorMittal in Kryvyi Rih and the former DMZ in Dnipro,” the general director says. “At the current steelmaking utilisation, we have enough of these capacities. If we increase production, we will have to look for additional coke.”

Earlier this month, Metinvest delivered a new batch of Italian hot rolled coil to its metal centre in Ternopil, Ukraine from its Italian subsidiary Metinvest Trametal SPA (see Kallanish passim).

In August, the Ukrainian steelmaker arranged the import into Ukraine of scarce thick plate and HRC from its assets in Italy. The total volume of planned deliveries to Ukraine is about 3,500 tonnes.

Svetoslav Abrossimov Bulgaria