Top managers of ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih had a meeting with the President of the State Volodymyr Zelenskyi in the end of July, and recently had negotiations with the representative of the Office of the President of Ukraine, having discussed possibilities to improve environmental footprint and to implement social projects in Kriviy Rih. The result is that the parties agreed upon the following five steps.
Step one. ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih continues global modernization of the plant, and its investments in it will make above $1.8 billion during the forthcoming five years. It will allow reducing the emissions by 50-55%. It will include the large-scale investment projects in sintering operations, which generate about 2/3 of the total air emissions of the plant. Augmentation of sinter shop No. 2 and construction of pellet plant will enable to shutdown outdated sinter plants.
Besides that, following the results of the President’s visit on July 12, ArcelorMittal prepared a plan of short-term initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental footprint. This plan was submitted to the President during the meeting and it provided reduction of air emissions by 10-15% within forthcoming months (the company will inform the details of it later).
Step two. The company got a possibility to continue implementation of its investment project of continuous casting complex (LFCC-2, 3) construction. Namely, it has resumed pre-commissioning works suspended after the search conducted by SSU on July 20 as part of the criminal case investigation as per article 441 of the Criminal Code (Ecocide).
Step three. The company also plans to cooperate actively with the government of Ukraine based on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. One of the main areas will be health care, namely improvement in conditions of the city residents’ prophylactic and treatment, including development of medical services sphere in Kriviy Rih. The company supported the President’s initiative regarding creation of Health Care Fund in Kriviy Rih that would involve various companies of the region. It is planned to invest money of the Fund in the development of medical facilities in the city. ArcelorMittal is ready to become one of those companies and to provide 100 million UAH per year.
Step four. As part of CSR and for sport development in the city, ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih will take part in capital restoration (repair) of Metalurg stadium in Kriviy Rih. The company will invest 50 million UAH in this project: 25 million UAH in 2019 and the same amount in 2020.
Step five. The President’s Office expressed its interest in construction of new concrete roads in the country, using steelmaking slag. It will allow creating high quality infrastructure in the regions and decreasing the slag dumps of steelmaking companies. ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih is ready to become a strategic partner of the state in this area.
ArcelorMittal is one of the biggest foreign investors in Ukraine and open for cooperation of business and all stakeholders. The company invested $9.2 billion in Ukraine, including takeover price. (AMKR/Ukrainian metal)