“ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog” (AMKR) reports that a search of the investigative Department of the security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Dnipropetrovsk region, July 20 has been withdrawn from the machine continuous casting machine (CCM) No. 3 and individual items of equipment.

“Therefore, AMKR is not able to continue the construction, modernization, plan production and enter into contracts for the supply of billets to customers. The project is frozen,” – stated in the message of the enterprise on its website on Sunday.

According to him, currently it is unknown how many will last the test of CCM-3 and documents from the SBU, and as further events will develop.

AMKR said that due to the large dimensions of the object, the employees of USBU made the decision to leave taken at the actual location without the possibility of sealing.

The company reminds that on July 20 on its territory were admitted to the 18 members of the security service specialist of the state service for emergency situations and the Central Inspectorate for nuclear and radiation safety to conduct a search continuous-casting machine No. 3. The audit team visited the company at 10:00 and left the company at 3:00 on July 21.

AMKR notes that the complex new CCM-2, 3 is one of the key investment projects of the company, which costs about $150 million, and the withdrawal of CCM-3 the company does direct damage.

The release States that the continuous casting machine №3 has six molds, each of which has a source of ionizing radiation. AMKR States that all equipment meets EU standards and is similar to that used on European assets. According to him, during the validation was performed measuring the radiation field at a distance of 10 cm from the cover surface of the mold, which was 0.15 mk3 per hour, which corresponds to the norm, however, on the basis of suspicion of the investigators on the retrofitting of radioactive sources in the body of the six-mold machine, it was decided to remove the equipment for subsequent studies.

As reported, on July 17 it became known that the SBU opened a criminal case against AMKR under article 441 of the Criminal code of Ukraine – “ecocide”. It was preceded by the fact that the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, a native of Krivoy Rog, criticized the company for failing in terms of commitments to improve the environmental situation in the region and encouraged to provide targeted financial support to those people who have suffered because of the harmful emissions into the atmosphere.

In connection with the recent events AMKR addressed to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the international community to intervene and stop the unprecedented pressure on the foreign investor.

Previously, the company announced plans this year to complete a number of large-scale investment projects, one of them is the construction of the complex of continuous casting of steel. Hot testing one of two new continuous casting machines are already, the company planned to soon begin tests on small-section mill No. 250-4, the reconstruction of which would cost $55 million.

ArcelorMittal owns Ukraine’s largest mining and metallurgical plant “ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog” and a number of small companies, in particular, PJSC “ArcelorMittal Beryslav”.

“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih” is the largest producer of rolled steel in Ukraine. Specializiruetsya in the production of long products, in particular rebar and wire rod.

Corporation Mittal Steel has acquired of 93.02% of shares of JSC “Krivorozhstal” at open competition on October 24, 2005, for 24.2 billion hryvnas (about 4.8 billion on Kousri at the time) with a starting price of UAH 10 billion, after which the steel plant was renamed “Mittal Steel Krivoy Rog”, and later “ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog”.

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