Ukraine’s Metinvest Eyes Italy For New Steel Plant

Via Metal Miner

Ukraine’s Metinvest plans to build a new steel manufacturing facility in Italy. Indeed, an official for the group recently confirmed reports of plans to build a plant in either that country or Bulgaria.

“Many people talked about the fact that we are considering the possibility of building a new plant in Italy. Indeed, this is the case,” Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov said in an interview on the group’s website. Ryzhenkov provided no technical details on the plant or what products it would produce. However, he noted that the group would use high-quality iron pellets from Ukrainian iron ore mines and processing plants.

One source told MetalMiner that the prospective steel plant will likely produce flat rolled products. The source added that the area around Trieste is one possible location for the plant. However, they warned that the location could change.

New Site to Add to Metinvest Chain

Trieste and the surrounding Friuli Venezia Giulia region lie in northeast Italy. The area borders the Gulf of Trieste, which is part of the Adriatic Sea, and Slovenia.

Metinvest already has two flats rolling sites in northern Italy. Moreover, the first, Metinvest Trametal, is also in Friuli Venezia Giulia region. According to information on that asset’s website, the facility boasts a 600,000 metric ton per year capacity, rolling plate in 4-180mm to a maximum width of 3200 mm.

Metinvest’s second steel manufacturing facility, Ferriera Valsider, lies in the Veneto region. This site can roll up to 400,000 metric tons per year of heavy plate in 8-200mm gauges and width up to 3,000 mm. It can also produce 600,000 metric tons of HRC annually in 1.8-25mm gauges to a maximum width 1,555 mm.

Ukrainian Steel Manufacturing Freight to Europe Expands

In other Ukrainian steel manufacturing updates, state railroad operator Ukrzaliznytsia announced the incorporation of Ukrainian Railways Cargo Poland on July 13. The new initiative aims to facilitate rail movements between the country and the European market.

The rail operator quoted board member Vyacheslav Yeromin as saying that, “The creation of such a company is dictated by the need for the development and growth of freight turnover between Ukraine and the European Union and is one of the components of Ukrzaliznytsia’s strategy for the development and development of freight transportation by rail.”

The width between rails on Ukraine’s railway network is broad-gauge, measuring 1,520mm. Meanwhile, Poland and most of continental Europe uses 1,435mm standard-gauge rails. Yeromin added that the newly-registered steel manufacturing company would also work with broad-gauge rolling stock as well as with standard.

Russia’s military continues to maintain blockades on Ukrainian ports, which started with its invasion in February of 2022. Furthermore, this prompted Ukrainian exporters to seek overland routes to Central Europe.

There are only two broad-gauge rail lines currently running from Ukraine into central Europe. The Broad-Gauge Metallurgy Line runs from the Polish-Ukrainian border to S?awków. Furthermore, the Uzhhorod–Košice line from what is now the Slovak-Ukrainian border to U.S. Steel Košice. Each of those lines was originally intended to supply iron ore to steel plants.

By Christopher Rivituso

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