Russian industry may feel a lack of zinc
Experts of the Russian metallurgical market consider:
the domestic industry may face a shortage of zinc. «Despite
the fact that the subsoil of the Russian Federation contain significant amounts of zinc, the volume
the extraction of this resource in the country in the global market is small» —
analysts comment on the situation. «Even worse in the manufacturing sector
refined metal: existing enterprises that produce zinc in the country
only two — OJSC Chelyabinsk zinc plant („JSC Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant“) and JSC „Electrozinc“ (
Vladikavkaz). At that time, as the needs of the local market in galvanized metal
constantly growing, as evidenced by the increasing number of enterprises
specializing in hot-dip galvanizing of steel products, most of
in the country of Zn continues to be exported outside Russia. If the above trends
will remain (as such prospects are more than probable), local consumers will face
with the shortage of the resource in the coming years» — say the representatives of the steel
business. To prevent shortages of the metal in the domestic market
industry players are planning to approach the state authorities with a request to impose a
special regulatory measures restricting the export of zinc for the border of Russia. «If
the government will introduce a tax on exports of metal, the appearance of problems with it
the supply of the domestic market of the Russian Federation it will be possible to prevent» — I think the owners
local galvanizing plants.
In the USSR, production of zinc was supplied «
wide leg» (the annual consumption of the metal did not fall below $ 500−600
thousand tons), however, the extraction of the resource in those times was more favorable to site
Kazakhstan, where concentrated the main zinc capacity of the country. So after
as the Soviet Union ceased to exist, in Russia there are only
three (relatively small) plant for the production of zinc. It’s these two
the above company («Electrozinc» and «Chelyabinsk branch»), and «Belovskaya Central locking» (Kemerovo
region), recognised insolvent at the end of 2000. At the same time since the collapse
Soviet zinc plants of the Russian Federation has faced a sharp drop in demand for private
products in the local market, which «remained in service» to companies and had
to shift to overseas customers.