Swiss-headquartered miner Ferrexpo, whose main interests are in Ukrainian iron ore assets, has announced a temporary suspension of production and exports from its Ukrainian mining subsidiaries after Russian missile strikes on November 8 targeted power generation and transmission infrastructure in Horishni Plavni and the nearby industrial city of Kremenchuk.
Electricity supply to the two facilities - Ferrexpo Poltava Mining and Ferrexpo Yeristovo Mining - was interrupted, forcing the company to halt operations while recovery efforts proceed.
The company confirmed that over the weekend partial power was restored, allowing limited processing to resume. Export operations remain affected until power capacity returns to normal.
Ferrexpo emphasized that it had precautionary measures in place, including building intermediate and finished product inventories at sites and logistics locations, to minimize impacts on export supply.
The suspension of Ferrexpo’s Ukrainian production places further pressure on the high-grade iron-ore pellet supply chain in Europe. With the affected mines located in a key region supplying the European steel sector, any prolonged downtime may lead to increased cost of sourcing alternatives, potential delays for steel producers, and heightened risk premiums for logistic routes, SteelOrbis understands.
In July-September this year Ferrexpo produced slightly less that 640,000 of iron ore pellets, 22.3 percent down from the previous quarter, while the production of iron ore concentrate increased by 36 percent to slightly over 870,000 mt, according to the official report.