Czech plate rolling plant Vitkovice Steel has notified its customers that it will suspend deliveries due to anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the European Union.
Sanctions targeting Russia announced by the EU on April 8 have disrupted slab supplies, with the largest steel plant in the Czech Republic expected to be shut down for 10-12 business days, Vitkovice Steel said in an email to regular customers . Consequently, the supply of the slab will also be delayed.
The package of EU sanctions against Russia included measures against OJSC STLC, the owner of the Astrol-2 dry cargo ships, and V. Smyslov. The ships were carrying 15,400 tons of slabs that were to be unloaded at the ports of Gdansk and Szczecin in Poland "over the weekend," Vitkovice Steel said in a letter.
"The above restrictions are effective immediately, without a grace period," the steelmaker said.
“The captains of the ships had no choice but to return to the port of loading, where they would be reloaded again and the goods would be reloaded onto other, safer ships,” the letter says.
Earlier this week, the Financial and Analytical Department of the Government of the Czech Republic blocked the assets of the Ostrava steel company Vítkovice Steel in connection with sanctions against Russia. In March of this year, there was evidence that shareholding control over Vítkovice Steel was leading to the Russian state-owned bank VEB. However, company spokeswoman Yana Dronska denied the information about the Russian owners, according to her, five Cypriot shareholders are entrepreneurs from the post-Soviet republics, and not from Russia.
