Security and economic expert Raivo Vare assumed that the increase in the import of manganese ore in Russia is related to the needs of the war.
Russia imported most of its manganese ore from the Republic of South Africa, Gabon, Brazil and Ivory Coast.
For various reasons, ships do not go directly to Russian ports, so the cargoes of manganese have to be loaded onto trains bound for Russia.
According to the information available to “Postimees”, almost 90% of the two million manganese ore exported to Russia last year was transshipped in Estonia and Latvia. Most of such cargoes are transhipped in the ports of Riga and Ventspils, but since last year, manganese ore has also been unloaded and stored in Sillame port before the trains go to Russia with it.
The Latvian state railway company “LDz Logistika” is one of several Latvian companies that participated in the transportation of manganese ore to Russia. Already in 2018, the company started accepting ships carrying manganese ore from Africa. With the beginning of the repeated invasion of Russia, the volume of such cargoes increased dramatically. Due to demand, the price of manganese has risen from US$150 before the war to US$300-350 per ton.
“Postimees” asked both “Latvijas dželzce” (LDz) and the Ministry of Transport to comment on the information expressed in the article, however, both institutions approved the request for information, but did not respond until the article was published.
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A year ago, LDz stopped the manganese ore storage service. Manganese ore stored at LDz was mainly transported to Russia’s largest producer of iron alloys – the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant – whose customer is the Russian defense industry sector for a long time.
Since 2023, manganese ore has also been delivered to Chelyabinsk through Vehi’s partially owned company “Silsteve”, according to various foreign customs declaration databases. Last year, about 400,000 tons of manganese ore were transported to Chelyabinsk through Silsteve. “Postimees” does not have information on how much “Silsteve” earned in such transactions, but their total value exceeds 100 million euros. In 2022, the partially owned port company of Vehi obtained 624,000 euros in transactions with Russia, which means that the amount increased significantly last year due to the increase in the volume of transactions.
Vehi, who was the Prime Minister of Estonia in 1995-1997, refused to “Postimees” to comment on the company’s activities, stressing that “all companies comply with Estonian laws, including the Estonian sanctions law”.
The former prime minister owns 50% of Silsteve. The other half of the company belongs to Yevgeni Malov and Gleb Katkov, who are the real beneficiaries of “Silsteve” owners “Famer Holding” and “Optial Holding”. Katkov’s father, Andrejs Katkov, is a member of the council of “Silsteve”. The same business group also owns the port of Sillame.
In the 80s of the last century, Andrej Katkov and Malov worked together with the currently well-known Russian oligarch and the sixth richest man, Gennady Timchenko, later getting involved in the oil business together. Katkov also maintained close business ties with Timchenko in the following years.
2024-03-08 17:22:02
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