Ukraine’s DMP restarts operations after eight-month break

Ukraine's Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (DMP) restarted operations at its Dnepr mill in the east of the country on Monday May 25, after eight months on maintenance.

The main steelmaking equipment of the mill, which is currently owned by Ukrainian business Alexander Yaroslavskiy’s DCH Group, had been idle since October 2019 because of low demand and falling prices in Ukraine. The unfavorable market conditions in Ukraine resulted in several mills halting operations at that time.

“Currently, the mill is gradually restarting its main blast furnace, basic oxygen furnace and rolling mill,” the company said on Monday May 25.

DMP specializes in the production of steel billet as well as rails and profiles.

DMP has capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year of pig iron, 1 million tpy of crude steel, 1.5 million tpy of blooms and 1.5 million tpy of rails and structural steel.

Fastmarkets’ daily steel billet index, export, fob Black Sea, CIS was $360 per tonne on May 22, down by $2 per tonne day on day and up by $7 per tonne months on month.

In June 2017, DHC Group purchased Evraz’s Kryvyi Rih-based iron ore asset Sukha Balka; since the purchase, DCH has pledged to invest $300 million on their modernization.