The metallurgy has been an object of regard of the Ukrainian officials for several decades. At the end of the Soviet age (in 1990) mining and metals production sector of Ukraine provided work for over half a million people. Our republic produced 35 percent of steel smelted in the USSR, 40 percent of cast iron, and nearly half of the iron ore. Since Ukraine became independent this economic sector started playing the key role in the national economy as the leading exporter of the country, foreign currency supplier (up to 35 percent of the whole amount), and the budget donor.
According to the Candidate of Science, employee of the Public Enterprise UkrNDIspetsstal Yakiv Spektor, the domestic metallurgy has been making a significant contribution to Ukraine’s economy owing to its high export capacity. “Some of our steel products are used in propulsion engineering, oil production, and atomic energetics. This metal will always be in high demand in Ukraine and abroad,” Spektor assured.
However, the situation is likely to worsen. Managers of Ukrainian metallurgical plants complain that they sometimes have to refuse profitable orders from abroad because they are unable to execute them properly. It concerns not only new products that technologists have not mastered yet, but the traditional ones, known from the Soviet time. “For example, there is the type of steel 4x5MFS used for producing high-strength tools. The production of this steel was organized long ago, however, over the past several years we do not accept any orders since it is impossible to make the steel endure the impact force our clients need,” engineer of the Zaporizhia electrometallurgical plant, Candidate of Science Serhii Nikitin said. The specialist assured that the steel analogous to 4x5MFS is in high demand in Europe, in particular, in the large markets of Italy and Spain. However, the Ukrainian producers cannot enter them because of the severe competition from the German metallurgic company Bohler. They even had to give way in the CIS markets that traditionally used the Ukrainian steel. “Bohler’s clients in Russia and Ukraine say that the structure of our metal is not worse than the structure of the German metal, but it endures lower impact force. That is why customers prefer working with the Germans and not with us,” Nikitin says. According to the most recent information, the Zaporizhia specialists managed to achieve better impact force characteristics of the steel 4x5MFS and, probably, they will soon get orders for these products. However, the enterprise still has 13 problematic types of steel. This problem has not been resolved yet, which means that the domestic metal producers are still losing their export capacity and cede the strategic markets to their foreign competitors.
According to the specialists, this problem can be resolved through reconstructing the old production facilities of the plant. But where are the investments? The metallurgists rely only on their professional skills, experience, and wit.
