OREANDA-NEWS. Ferrexpo Poltava OMEP (PGOK) has approved its major production goals for 2008, the press-service of Millennium Capital, a financial services provider, reported.

According to the plan, PGOK will mine 32mn tons of iron ore (+20.7% above the 2006 level) and produce 9.6mn tons of pellets (+11.6% above the 2006 level), 8.7 mn tons of which will be produced from its own iron ore. To achieve these figures, in 2008 PGOK will acquire new equipment, including 4 rock-drilling machines. Moreover, in 2008 the development of the Lavrikovske deposit will begin. For this purpose PGOK will acquire 10 high tonnage vehicles and 3 navvies with hoe capacity of 20m3.

To build a new quarry on the basis of Yeristovske deposit Ferrexpo AG (Switzerland, owns 40.19% in PGOK) has signed a contract with Novokramatorsky machine-building to buy 6 new excavators for USD 46mn in order to build a new quarry at the Yeristivske deposit. This is the key investment in the development of the Yeristovske deposit.

The observed output expansion is in line with the company's plans to reach 16 million tons of pellets output by 2014. In 2006, the company produced 8.6 million tons of pellets, and Millennium Capital analysts expect it to reach 9.3 million tons performance in 2007.