Interfax reported that Ukraine based Poltava Mining, the core asset of the London listed Ferrexpo plc, boosted commercial pellet production from internal and purchased feedstock by 20.3%YoY in January to April to 3.16 million tonnes as demand for the commodity soared.

Ferrexpo said Poltava Mining produced 1.628 million tonnes of pellets with Fe content of 62% from internal and purchased feedstock up by 24.4%YoY and 1.533 million tonnes of Fe-65% up by 16.2%YoY. Pellet production from internal feedstock rose 18.7% to 1.553 million tonnes for Fe-62% and 2.3% to 1.35 million tonnes for Fe-65%. Overall pellet production from internal feedstock grew 10.4% in the four months to 2.903 million tonnes.

In April alone, Poltava Mining produced 741,000 tonnes of pellets from internal feedstock down by 0.6%YoY. This included 381,000 tonnes of Fe-62% down by 5.4% and 359,000 tonnes of Fe-65% up by 5%. It produced 81,000 tonnes of pellets from purchased feedstock in April, compared with zero in the same month of last year but 98,000 tonnes in March this year. Overall pellet production in April rose 10.3%YoY to 822,000 tonnes.

Crude iron ore production rose 10.5%YoY in the four months to 9.55 million tonnes and iron ore concentrate production grew 13.3% to 3.61 million tonnes.

In April alone, Poltava Mining produced 2.34 million tonnes of ore, down 4.3% from the same month last year and 920,000 tonnes of concentrate up by 1.9%.

Ferrexpo exports most of its pellets to Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and other European countries and China.

(Sourced from Interfax)