The level of production in the mines owned by the Ukrainian company Ferrexpo, remained relatively stable, despite the closure of a critical port in the Black Sea.
In the first three months of 2022, the London Mining Company extracted 2.7 million tons of iron ore from its three sites in central Ukraine, which is slightly less than the same period last year.
However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine inevitably affected the firm’s operations when it excavated approximately 400,000 tons of pellets less than in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Mining: The London-based miner said it had mined 2.7 million tonnes of iron ore at three sites in central Ukraine in the first three months of 2022.
Since the end of February, Ferrexpo has not been able to transport raw materials – a common ingredient used in steel production and valued for minimizing carbon emissions – from the port of South.
Prior to the escalation of the conflict, the seaport was responsible for transporting about half of the group’s products by dry cargo, from where it was delivered to metallurgical plants in countries such as Germany, South Korea and the United States.
However, despite the fact that supplies were stopped, the Swiss company was able to continue to export pellets via rail and river to customers across Europe, despite fears that these routes would suffer significant disruptions.
CEO Jim North noted that the Ferrexpo mining sites, located about 220 miles east of Kiev, have managed to continue to operate as they are outside the main arena of conflict.
He added that the company is “looking at alternative ways to supply our products to maritime markets” to try to compensate for the closure of the “South”.
After immersion for most of the previous six weeks, shares of Ferrexpo on Friday rose 10.8 percent to 187.3 pence, though their value remains slightly less than a quarter lower than the day before the escalation of the Russian invasion.
But even before that, the company’s stock price had been gradually declining since last summer, despite significant benefits from rising iron ore prices amid a recovery in the global economy and high performance by the mining giants.
In fact, on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his troops were launching a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine, Anglo American announced record earnings for the year.
The Blue Chips Corporation explains the rise in demand for iron ore as well as copper and platinum group metals because its core profits more than doubled from $ 9.8 billion in 2020 to $ 20.6 billion next year.
Antofagasta, BHP Group and Rio Tinto also reported exceptionally strong results, with the latter also providing shareholders with a whopping £ 12.6 billion last year, making it the second largest dividend in FTSE 100 history.
Ferrexpo has not yet declared full-year dividends for fiscal 2021 and has twice postponed the publication of annual results due to uncertainty created by the war in Ukraine.
However, he found that his net cash as of March 31 was up more than a third from the previous quarter to about $ 159 million, thanks in part to sales of 2.6 million tonnes of pellets during that period as it increased production activities to meet demand.
