Marhanets mining plant stops production due to attacks and lack of water after blowing up of Kakhovka HPP
Pravda Ukraine
The Marhanets Mining and Processing Plant (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast) stopped the mining and procession of raw manganese ore this October, with Russian attacks being one of the reasons.
Source: website of the company
There are several reasons why the plant stopped operating.
The main reason is Russian military aggression. The actions of the occupiers led to a shortage of water in the Kakhovka water reservoir which made it impossible to replenish the technical water tanks which are used for the beneficiation of the raw manganese ore.
Another reason is the Russian artillery attacks on the facilities and infrastructure of the industrial springboard of the plant.
Herewith, the Russian attacks damaged the communications, buildings and facilities of the departments, and a lot of time and financing is needed to restore the infrastructure of the plant. This can’t be done while the occupiers are on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
Russian artillery attacks have caused most damage to the Hrushivka Concentrating Mill (HCM) as it was badly damaged after a few strikes. The ceiling at the ore receiving building HCM-1 was partially damaged there, and 90% of window slits were damaged as well.
Gas and oil heating was also suspended at the entire industrial springboard and in the mines since it is risky to heat these kinds of fuel during the war.
The absence of water for wet concentration of the ore produced by the mines and the quarry has become a separate problem. The deficit of water was gradual, not abrupt.
Last year the HCM was forced to stop operating because there was less and less technical water in the reverse cycle of the plant. The plant could continue its operation by buying technical river water from centralised networks of the city water supply channel. After the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), the city of Marhanets and all adjacent territories were left without water, including the Marhanets HCM.
For some time the plant was conducting some operations without the processing cycle of raw manganese ore, and only production mines were operating. Underground mining shops finished the pits which were still in operation, but there was no point in reactivating the pits prepared for future work as the ore produced earlier was only stored and not processed.
This is why the company was obliged to stop the production.
At the moment the plant is idle but some employees are involved in restoration works in order to resume operation successfully and safely in the future.
Background:
- The Marhanets Mining and Processing Plant is developing the eastern part of the Nikopol deposit of manganese ores (Hrushivka-Basan section). Specifically, four mines, with one of them being in the process of construction, the Hrushivka quarry and a concentrating mill are a part of the plant.
- The largest shareholders of the Marhanets Mining and Processing Plant are the companies Couttenmax Holdings Limited, Mosfilia Investments Limited and Humax Enterprises Limited (all from Cyprus), which own 24% of its stock.
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