8 December 2016
At night of 7 December Metinvest Group’s Avdiivka Coke lost electricity supply. Both feeds got cut out. For over 24 hours Avdiivka Coke employees are fighting to preserve production capacity. As of 13:30 on 8 December the plant stopped issuing coke.
During the last 24 hours Avdiivka Coke has experienced several full stoppages and relaunches of equipment. The situation is aggravated by the weather conditions: extreme ambient temperatures (down to –16°С at night) several hours without heat could prove fatal for the coking batteries of the enterprise.
In addition, due to military activity, process water supply to the plant halved. Therefore, the plant does not have the possibility to generate electricity to cover at least its minimal needs.
Water heating boilers of the Heat and Power Plant also shut down. The balance of process water is extremely low at the plant. All Avdiivka residential houses and administrative buildings have been deprived of heating, because there is no other heat source in the city.
Avdiivka Coke and DTEK specialists are prepared to leave any minute for the place of the feeds damage to conduct repair works. However no permit to perform the visit has not been received from the Joint Control and Coordination Centre. Mine clearance of the territory has not been performed.
Musa Magomedov, General Director of Avdiivka Coke:
- All the challenges that today prevent stable operation of the largest coking plant in Europe are not technical, but are war related. There is no need to repeat what destiny is awaiting the residents of Avdiivka, should Avdiivka Coke cease its operation, and what catastrophe it will be for the economy of Ukraine, if Avdiivka Coke shuts down. Therefore we are in acute need for the help from the OSCE, the Joint Control and Coordination Centre, Military and Civil Administration, and the public.
To remind: since June 2014, 320 shells exploded on the plant territory, 9 Avdiivka Coke employees were killed, over 50 were wounded. For the last several months, the enterprise has been operating on two high voltage feeds instead of four required.