Swiss-headquartered miner Ferrexpo, whose main interests are in Ukrainian iron ore assets, has announced its operational results for the third quarter and the first nine months of this year.
In the given quarter, the company’s total pellet production moved down by 14.4 percent quarter on quarter to 1.27 million mt. In particular, Ferrexpo’s direct reduced (DR) pellet production totaled 163,523, rising by 0.5 percent, while its premium pellet production amounted to 944,279, down by 14.5 percent, both on quarter-on-quarter basis.
In the January-September period, Ferrexpo’s total pellet production went up by 41.9 percent year on year to 4.57 million mt, while its DR pellet and premium pellet outputs came to 326,168 mt and 3.78 million mt, respectively, remaining unchanged and increasing by 17.5 percent compared to the first nine months of 2023.
“The third quarter presented a very challenging operating and macroeconomic environment. As we highlighted in the interim results, the requirement to import 80 percent of our electricity from our western neighbors remains in place, and the resulting high tariffs continue to have a negative impact on our costs. This has been exacerbated by elevated shipping freight rates and additional war risk insurance premiums. To mitigate the pressure on margins, our strategy has been to focus on sales of higher quality iron ore products to customers in close geographical proximity. This included expanding our customer base and sales of premium priced DR pellets in the MENA region,” Lucio Genovese, interim executive chair of the company, commented regarding the results.
