Ukraine cancels privatisation tender on titanium and zirconium miner

Australia United Mining

29/10/2021 06:07

KYIV, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine has cancelled the
privatisation auction for the sale of Europe's largest titanium
and zirconium miner, United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC),
due to the lack of participants, the state property fund said on
Friday.
    The same auction in August was also cancelled for this
reason.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2PY1GJ
    "The state property fund received two applications for
participation in the auction...one of which does not meet the
requirements of current legislation," the fund said in a
statement.
    It noted that a new auction could be set for December.
    The fund has said the starting price for 100% of UMCC had
been set at 3.7 billion hryvnias ($140.69 million) .
    UMCC is among the top 10 global miners of titanium and
zirconium ores and its global market share was 2.3% for
ilmenite, 6.2% for rutile and 1.4% for zircon in 2020, according
to Ukrainian officials.
    UMCC provides raw materials that have a wide range of uses
including steelmaking, glassmaking and traditional ceramics,
with titanium also used as an important alloying agent.
    
    ($1 = 26.2992 hryvnias)

 (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Sam Holmes)
 ((pavel.polityuk@tr.com; +380 44 2449150; Reuters Messaging:
pavel.polityuk.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))