Donbass blockade costing Metinvest's steel plant in Mariupol $148,000 a day
KYIV. Feb 28 (Interfax) - The Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, part of the Metinvest Group, estimates its losses from the blockade of rail lines leading to southeastern Ukraine (Donbass) at 4 million hryvni ($148,000) a day, plant CEO Yuri Zinchenko said.
"Our enterprise alone is incurring losses due to such actions on the railroad of about 4 million hryvni a day," Zinchenko said at a meeting Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman held with representatives of the metallurgical sector in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Since the blockade of the rail lines began in early February, the Ilyich plant has received 30% less coke than it consumes.
Opposition activists blocked the rail line linking Kurdyumivka-Horlivka at the beginning of February. Earlier, on January 25, the Hirske-Zolote segment of the Luhansk-Lisichansk rail line was blocked. The goal of the blockades is to end trade with the separatists in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.
The Ilyich plant boosted production of rolled product 7% to 2.472 million tonnes in 2016. Steel output increased 3.5% to 2.737 million tonnes and pig iron production rose 6.9% to 3.815 million tonnes.
The official exchange rate on February 28 was 27.05 hryvni/$1.