FERTILIZERS, ELECTRICITY, AND FEED ADDITIVES MADE FROM SECONDARY RAW MATERIALS: RECYCLING SOLUTIONS LOOKS BACK ON 2020

METALLURGICAL SLAGS AND COAL COMBUSTION PRODUCTS

Although the quarantine significantly affected the metallurgical and cogeneration waste segment, the company managed to keep its sales in 2020 at the level of 2019, i.e. 1.82 million tons of metallurgical slags and 0.41 million tons of coal combustion products. Due to the quarantine, the small manufacturers of building materials suspended their operation for three months, while the concrete producers which are the major consumers of secondary raw materials cut their output by 4%. The segment of dry mixes, bricks, and cinder blocks saw the largest decline in the consumption of coal combustion products. Besides, encapsulating the thermal power plants caused the microsphere production to drop by 50% during the spring quarantine. The year was also marked by the significantly increased railway transportation costs. Note that these trends didn’t affect dump slags—it had stable demand thanks to the Big Construction state infrastructure project. Despite the quarantine measures, the company exported granulated slags to Europe, as it faces a shortage of such raw materials which would compete on quality and price with the Ukrainian products. Last year, Ukrainian metallurgical slags began to be used in Slovakia and Latvia.