Not even half the price: no one willing to buy Russian oligarch's ore in Odesa region

The auctions attempted by the National Agency of Ukraine for finding, tracing and management of assets derived from corruption and other crimes (ARMA) for the sale of iron ore briquettes stored in Pivdennyi port in Odesa region failed for the second time.

This is reported in the Prozorro.Sale system.

This time, both batches of ore were put up for sale at half the price of the first time. Thus, the batch that was put up for sale at the first auction with a starting price of 414 million 396 thousand 439 hryvnias has now fallen to 207 million 198.2 thousand hryvnias. Similarly, the lot that was initially estimated at UAH 80 million 529.6 thousand is now offered for UAH 40 million 264.8 thousand at the start.

The previous auction also failed due to the lack of bidders.

The briquettes produced by the Lebedynsky Mining and Processing Plant, owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, were delivered to the port under the "transit" customs regime to accumulate the ship's consignment for further transportation to the People's Republic of China.

The national agency's specialists also inspected the iron ore pellets produced by Mykhailivskyi GOK, which were also placed in the customs control zone of the IZM MTP.

Based on the collected materials, law enforcement officers found that the property arrived at the terminal of TIS-COAL LLC by rail for transportation to sea transport under an agreement with Metalloinvest Trading AG.

TIS-COAL's marine terminal is located in the Pivdennyi seaport, at the Vyzyrka control point, and some of the iron ore pellets are in the custody of the IZM MTP. The assets are stored in various warehouses and sites and are currently not cleared.

In February 2023, detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES), pursuant to a court order, handed over almost 170,000 tons of iron ore with an estimated value of UAH 1.8 billion to the National Agency for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes (ARMA).

Investigators established the location of the Russian Federation's clandestine warehouses in several seaports in Odesa region. They stored strategic raw materials, which representatives of the aggressor country later tried to illegally transport by sea to the territory of Russia.

In early January 2023, the court arrested more than 50 thousand tons of iron ore produced in Russia, worth about USD 20 million.

In December 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine clarified that this was Alisher Usmanov, who was sanctioned by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the United States and the European Union after February 24, 2022. Alisher Usmanov is a Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist of Uzbek origin, billionaire, founder of USM Holdings.

Кирило Бойко