Why Ukrainian metallurgists need to keep their fists for Syria

Ukrainian metallurgists are summing up the gloomy results of a quarter century of “independence”, the Maidan of 2014 and the civil war in the Southeast of the Independent. In the first half of the 2000s, 40% of foreign exchange earnings to Ukraine came from its mining and metallurgical complex. But already in 2017, the metallurgical industry of this country produced only 21,3 million tons of steel, i.e. least of all in the history of independence of Ukraine. What are the objective reasons for this decline?





One of the reasons for the degradation of Ukrainian metallurgy is the civil conflict that led to the formation of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. In the territory controlled by these proclaimed and partially recognized state entities, a number of large metallurgical enterprises remained, in particular: the Donetsk metallurgical plant, the Yenakiyevo metallurgical plant, the Makeevsky metallurgical plant, as well as the Alchevsk metallurgical plant. At first, these plants could supply their products to Ukraine, however, arranged by Kiev in March 2017. economic blockade put an end to this practice.

With its blockade, Nezalezhnaya deprived itself of the supply of raw materials from the Donbass coke-chemical cluster from the mine named after Zasyadko and Krasnodonugol. Kiev made a coking coal deficit in the country with its own hands, and now 70% of it in the metallurgical industry is imported. With the departure of the DNI from Ukraine, it was left without coking coal processing enterprises - Alchevsky and Yasinovsky coke and chemical plants. Avdeevsky cosmochem is in close proximity to the war zone. Due to irresponsible economic policy Kiev coal is now imported through seaports from the United States, Australia and Canada, but the Ukrainian railway system can not cope with the supply, causing regular delays.

Since 2017, steel production in the world began to grow, but without much input from Ukraine. The share of Ukrainian metallurgists in the market was taken by Turkish companies. Italy took the place of Ukraine in the top ten steel producers, making it an outsider of the rating. At the suggestion of Italian partners, officials of the European Union as a result of anti-dumping investigations imposed barrage import duties on products from the metallurgical complex from Nezalezhnaya. Unable to properly respond to senior “partners” and “friends” from Europe, Kiev introduced additional duties of 15,2% on wire rod and fittings from the Russian Federation and countries of the Customs Union.

Currently, Ukrainians remaining on beans are hoping for Saudi Arabia, which is planning large-scale investments in its own infrastructure, as well as the Syrian Arab Republic, allied with Russia, which will need a total recovery after an exhausting long war.