OREANDA-NEWS. November 26, 2007. Igor Kolomoiskiy and Gennadiy Bogolubov, the co-owners of PrivatBank and the largest ferroalloy magnates of Europe, obtained a possibility to supply the Ukrainian silicomanganese to the European market for at least another five years, UFC Capital reports. This became possible after the EU abandoned its antidumping investigation against silicomanganese imported from Ukraine. According to Anatoliy Kinakh, the acting minister of economy, a decision to abandon the antidumping investigation was taken on November 21.

The antidumping investigation was initiated at the request of Euroalliages (the European association of ferroalloys producers), which complained about serious damages suffered by its members in 2004, when at the surge of metallurgical boom, the prices for silicomanganese soared and the domestic producers increased their output and sold it with a good discount, which allowed them to strengthen their positions in the European market. As a result, in September 2006, the complaint filed by Euroalliages against the Ukrainian import triggered a relevant investigation, and from the last December, the European officials conducted audits of Nikopol, Zaporizhia and Stakhanov Ferroalloys. Euroalliages insisted on introduction of a 30-60% margin for five years for active countries-exporters, but by the end of the day, the European Commission officials recommended to impose the following duties: 0% — for silicomanganese from Ukraine, 7.5% — from Kazakhstan and 8.5% — from China.

In Europe, at silicomanganese produced by Privat fell 220 thousand tonnes of the total market capacity, which amounts to 700 thousand tonnes, and in the Russian market — 200 thousand tonnes out of 400 thousand tonnes. Taking into account the silicomanganese price in the global markets, as per the most modest estimations, the losses to-be-incurred by the companies owned by Mr Kolomoiskiy and Bogolubov, in case the European market is closed for them, are estimated at $165 million, as minimum, which was also indirectly confirmed by Mr Kinakh. According to him, the Ukrainian producers export silicomanganese to Europe for about $200 million each year.