What equipment for GMK is offered by the largest dealers

MiningWorld Ukraine participants expect an increase in demand for equipment for MMPs

In Zaporozhye, on October 8-10, for the first time, a specialized exhibition of the mining industry MiningWorld Ukraine was held. Previously, it was held in Kyiv, but in 2019 it moved to the Kozak Palace exhibition center in Zaporozhye.

As the organizers explain, the choice of the city was not accidental, since around the triangle formed by Zaporozhye, Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih, there are the largest industrial agglomerations of Ukraine – Kryvbas and Donbass. The Prydniprovsky economic region is the center of the mining, metallurgical, energy and machine-building industries, as well as the area where industrial giants are present.

Today, the main role in achieving the efficiency of an industrial enterprise is the issue of technical and technological equipment. The GMK Center correspondent asked the exhibitors what equipment the mining and metallurgical enterprises are currently interested in and how dealers and manufacturers react to demand.

Digitalization of solutions

Zeppelin Ukraine, the official dealer of Caterpillar, regularly introduces updated models with new technologies to the market. The latest market trend is digitalization of solutions.

“Big players are moving towards automating decisions, digitizing, collecting a database and analyzing remotely, without the presence of operators or with a minimum of their presence,” explains Sergey Kolodkin, head of the mining equipment sales division.

One example is Caterpillar’s development of unmanned trucks and wireless data transmission for mining equipment as an alternative to WiFi and mobile communications from Rajant Corporation.

Zeppelin works with the main market players: Ferrexpo, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Metinvest and DTEK. The company notes that since 2016 there has been a constant, but not intensive increase in sales of equipment, which is also predicted for 2019-2020.

“Our market of large players always depends on the political and economic situation in Ukraine as a whole. After the shocks, the rules of the game became more or less clear, and investors with owners feel more secure. They invest in production, and in the mining and metallurgical complex, this is primarily the renewal of the fleet,” Kolodkin sums up.

Robot from Belarus

BelAZ considers our country as one of the main consumers of its dump trucks. According to Alexander Tkachenko, marketing specialist of the company, in Ukraine the Belarusian enterprise has the first fleet of vehicles after Russia. It has about 2.2 thousand units.

Among the main clients of BelAZ are the Northern, Ingulets and Southern MPPs, ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog and Metinvest. With the latest, the company is working on the implementation of a special project for 2020 – the introduction of robotic mining dump trucks at one of the mining and processing plants. Machines with a carrying capacity of 130 tons will be paired with robotic loaders.

As an example of another innovative project, Belarusians cite the development of mining dump trucks in the form of diesel trolley trucks with a carrying capacity of 240 tons. While operating in trolley mode, they can significantly reduce fuel costs without losing traction. Such dump trucks have already been ordered at one of the quarries in Russia.

Even in BelAZ they are proud of their giants with a carrying capacity of 450 tons with two engines. By the way, they are included in the Guinness Book of Records.

According to Tkachenko, the Ukrainian market has recently been assessed as stable. The shock was the loss of the market in parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, where the company had regular customers. Now there is a slight increase in sales. So, in 2018, the company sold 55 units of equipment in Ukraine for about $50 million, and in 2019 it predicts the sale of at least 60 units.

Belarusians consider political upheavals, which can instantly change the economic situation in the country, to be a threat to the market.

China is no longer the same

New to the show is Qingdao Fambition Mining Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of dump trucks, loaders and underground mining equipment. It is from Zaporozhye that they begin their acquaintance with the Ukrainian market.

According to representatives of Qingdao Fambition, the company annually sells about 200 pieces of equipment in the world markets. Of these, a significant part is in Russia.

The Chinese assess the Ukrainian market as promising and with the help of the exhibition they plan to find the first customers and sales representatives for their products. The first result is an agreement on a meeting with a potential buyer – Zaporozhye Iron Ore Plant (ZIOP).

“There is an enterprise, the Zaporozhye iron ore plant, they used to buy equipment in Europe, but our equipment can reduce the cost of production for them. They were very interested in our technique, and we agreed to meet after this exhibition,” said James Shui, regional director of Qingdao Fambition.

According to him, in recent years, the company shows a stable growth in sales of 10%. Qingdao Fambition attributed this to the fact that customers realized that China also has very good equipment that works fine.

Emphasis on service

The Finnish engineering concern Metso presented its integrated solutions at the exhibition. According to the representative of the exclusive distributor of SV TEK (Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region) in Ukraine, Dmitry Nazarenko, they are ready to supply their customers with a turnkey mining and processing complex. According to him, now the market is a slight decline.

“We are very dependent on our customers. The way the GMK works is the way we work. But Metso’s slurry pump division is showing solid year-on-year growth. Pumps are the bread of any plant, the rest of the equipment is like butter and caviar on top of this bread,” he said.

The company provides prompt and high-quality service maintenance of its equipment. This allows customers to reduce costs by 2-5%.

Metso also tries to regularly introduce new developments. For example, such as vertical mills, an updated line of slurry pumps. Metso’s largest clients in Ukraine are DTEK, Metinvest and Ferrexpo.

Despite the declining market, the company expects its sales to grow with customers willing to upgrade, increase productivity, or improve product quality.

Dear roads

Doosan road construction and quarry equipment was represented at the exhibition by the Industriya group of companies (Dnepr). The dealers presented their new products: the DL 550 front loader and the DX 480 and DX 800 crawler excavators.

According to Roman Shcherbakov, a regional representative of the group, there is a high demand for equipment in their segment, mainly due to the active construction of roads in Ukraine in the last year.

“Sales are growing mainly due to road construction. In conditions of high competition, there are many manufacturers here, and the Ukrainian market attracts them,” Shcherbakov said.

They expect sales to increase by 25% this year. For 2020, the forecasts are also positive: an increase of 5-10% is expected.

Sixth series

The Yuromash company (Kyiv), which is the exclusive dealer of Hitachi Construction Machinery Co products in Ukraine, also stakes on road construction. The company’s managers Andrey Sapelnikov and Dmitry Maksim told the GMK Center correspondent that now Ukrainian customers are switching to the 6th series of Hitachi excavators, which meets the new European environmental standards.

They explain the growth of sales in the market by the increase in road construction in Ukraine. Large players, on the other hand, are regularly changing the fleet of obsolete mining equipment. Yuromash complained that the main clients – quarries and mining and processing plants – are not always ready to spend money on premium equipment.

“They are interested, they count money, some go to the cheaper segment at the expense of quality. This leads to the fact that they change equipment more often … We work with key market players and look at when they will change their fixed assets. We are following these issues,” summed up one of the Yuromash managers.

Czechs are waiting for money

Association CDT (Czech Extraction and Mining Technology) “Czech Mining Technology” has been participating in exhibitions in Ukraine for 20 years with funding from the European Union and with the support of the Ministry of Industry of the Czech Republic. The association brings together 14 Czech companies producing mining equipment and annually helps its residents to present products in their main markets – Ukraine, Russia and China.

According to Jakub Salom, a representative of the association, they previously worked constantly at the exhibition in Donetsk, where their companies saw their main interests in the field of coal mining. But after the Euromaidan, this became impossible, so they temporarily stopped their participation in exhibitions and resumed it only in 2018 in Kyiv.

According to Mr. Salom, now Czech companies do not hope for significant sales in Ukraine.

“I was told that there is not much money in Ukraine. In the past there were contracts, but now there is no money,” he summed up. – You have to wait. And if Ukraine cooperates with the European Union, the situation may change.”