#SPFU’s Enterprises: UMCC plans to resume work at Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant and bring the branch to the pre-war level of production up to the end of 2023
United Mining and Chemical Company JSC negotiates the sale of the Irshansk MPP branch’s products to Western partners and plans to resume the extraction and enrichment of ilmenite concentrate at the enterprise by the end of 2023 at the degree of 18 thousand tons per month. It was declared by Dimitri Kalandadze, Member of the Board of UMCC JSC, to the representatives of the Department of State Corporate Rights of SPFU during his visit to the enterprise.
“Irshansk MPP stopped its production in November last year. Currently, about 54 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate and 100 thousand tons of raw concentrate are in the storages of the enterprise. It is necessary to start selling these products in order to begin mining new raw materials,” said Dimitri Kalandadze, Member of the Board of UMCC JSC.
According to Mr. Kalandadze, the Company is actively negotiating the signing of new contracts for the export products from the Irshansk MPP and hopes to start the first shipments in June 2023. In addition, the Company is looking for the most optimal logistic routes.
In the meantime, the Irshansk MPP is engaged in the repair of equipment on its own, the funds for the renewal of which have not been invested for a long period, and is preparing for launch.
“The recovery of product sales will allow us to gradually restore production and enrichment.We will be able to return to work that part of the employees of the Irshansky MPP, which is now on idle time and receives ⅔ of the salary. This is a priority task for us. We plan to reach the production level of 18 thousand tons of ilmenite concentrate per month by the end of this year. This is almost the level of the plan that we had established at the beginning of 2022, before the war,” added Kalandadze.
The Fund believes that the start-up of production at the Zaporizhzhia Titanium and Magnesium Plant should have a positive effect on the work of UMCC as a supplier of raw materials, therefore, options for resuming the work of the titanium giant are already being worked out.
“There are certain problems in launching production at the Zaporizhzhia Titanium and Magnesium Plant, and first of all, this is the influence on the enterprise of structures subject to one of the Ukrainian sanctions oligarchs.Despite the fact that the enterprise was returned to state ownership and de jure is now under the management of the Fund, we constantly encounter resistance from previous owners.But we have a plan to restore the production chain,” said Oleksandr Fedoryshyn, Director of the Department of State Corporate Rights.
Now the SPFU is also waging a stubborn struggle to regain control over another state enterprise in the titanium industry - Sumykhimprom, which the structures of the same oligarch brought to bankruptcy and continue to control, blocking privatization.