Ukraine reduced coke production by 6.8% in January–September

In January–September 2020, Ukrainian coke companies decreased production of blast-furnace coke by 6.8% to 7.2 million tons compared to the same period of the previous year, according to Interfax-Ukraine with reference to Ukrkoks association of coke companies.

“Supplies of domestic coking coals slightly increased, while imports still come from the U.S., Canada and Russia,” says Anatoliy Starovoit, CEO of Ukrkoks.

According to him, coke production volumes in Ukraine are sufficient to cover the rather small volumes of domestic pig iron production, and no increase in demand is expected.

“We have no forecast for the next year. We’ve been actually working with no forecast at all in the last one or two years — we are guided by the situation and requests from steel companies,” explains Mr Starovoit.

725 thousand tons of coke were produced in September. In the first nine months of the current year, the following companies cut coke production compared to the same period of 2019:

• Avdiyivka Coke Plant — by 14% to 2.2 million tons (227 thousand tons produced in September);
• Dniprokoks — by 9.1% to 379 thousand tons (49 thousand tons);
• Kharkiv Coke Plant — by 85.2% to 4 thousand tons (0 thousand tons);
• AMKR — by 9.1% to 1.93 million tons (167 thousand tons).

In January–September, the following three Ukrainian companies boosted coke production:

• Azovstal — by 0.1% to 1.008 million tons (103 thousand tons produced in September);
• Dniprovskyi Coke Plant — by 5.5% to 440 thousand tons (47 thousand tons);
• Zaporizhzhia Coke Plant — by 4.5% to 738 thousand tons (78 thousand tons);
• Yuzhkoks — by 5.7% to 484 thousand tons (54 thousand tons).

Coke plants have sufficient coal stocks.

In 2019, Ukrainian coke plants cut production of blast-furnace coke with 6% moisture content by 7.1% against 2018, down to 10.059 million tons.