Ukrainian state company ships ilmenite to occupied Crimea to Firtash's plant

Ukrainian state company ships ilmenite to occupied Crimea to Firtash's plant

Under Zelensky, the blatant lawlessness that occurred under Poroshenko continues…

Ilmenite produced by the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC) is being shipped to the address of PrJSC "Crimean TITAN" in annexed Crimea.

This is stated in a publication on the Myrotvorets website, quoted by Censor.net.

The shipment is covert and is taking place along the route Odesa-Hopa-Feodosiya-Armiansk on two ships — the Greek VENTO and the Syrian SOURIA. The latter is on the U.S. financial intelligence sanctions list as one that repeatedly violated the ban on entering Crimea’s territorial waters.

The Delo portal reports that the ships are delivering Irshansk ilmenite from UMCC in the amount of 24 thousand tons and worth EUR 3,7 million. It was purchased from UMCC under a contract by the German ITS (International Trade & Sourcing GmbH & Co). Its director — Oleg Tsyura — concluded the deal with UMCC head Peter Davis for the delivery of these volumes on 17 June.

Experts say that Davis’s and Tsyura’s contract is rather unusual for the market.

"It provides for payment in euros, while market quotations are usually in dollar equivalents. I assume this will help avoid dollar compliance and not end up in processing with U.S. law enforcement. Secondly, the contract does not provide for the delivery of product samples that could be tested, and that is what traders or processors do when they first deal with titanium raw materials (ITS has not been seen in this business before). Thirdly, the trader is ready to take a large volume of product at once — 24 thousand tons — without testing it," analyzes Dmytro Hordeychuk, director of the Infoindustriya news agency.

Obviously, the expert believes, the buyer knows what he is taking. It was Irshansk GOK ilmenite that supplied "Crimean Titan" until 2014.

"Proven ilmenite does not need to be tested, and since then Irshansk GOK has not changed its production technology," Hordeychuk says.

UMCC’s ilmenite is being shipped to Crimea with the mediation of UMCC management and the State Property Fund. Port workers told the publication about this.

"On UMCC’s side, the member of the board Yuriy Solovey, who is close to former head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Administration Yuriy Vaskov, was responsible for ensuring the deal. It was they, according to port employees, who ‘pushed’ the loading of VENTO without a specific discharge port. And when customs detained the shipment, the head of the State Property Fund Dmytro Sennichenko intervened in the process."

The shipment is still ongoing. On 3 August the SOURIA was loading a second batch of ilmenite in the Turkish port of Hopa. This is visible from Myrotvorets’ port reports.

The United Mining and Chemical Company was established in August 2014. It manages the Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant and the Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant. 2018 year it finished with a net profit of 114,9 million UAH. The value of assets is 3,4 billion UAH. In February 2020 the State Property Fund changed the company’s leadership. Since April UMCC has been led by Peter Davis. The enterprise was put up for privatization in 2020.