Another zinc production plant may appear in Russia

In February 2020, Polymet Engineering launched a project to build a zinc plant in Verkhny Ufaley, Chelyabinsk Region. The launch of a zinc plant with a capacity of 120 thousand tons of metallic zinc is scheduled for October 2023. It remains to be hoped that the situation in the world will not greatly affect the timing of the completion of this project.

The implementation of the new investment project was caused by a shortage of zinc in the national market. Zinc imports in 2021 increased by 46%, to 23.8 thousand tons. Most of the zinc is imported from Kazakhstan (78% of total imports) and Uzbekistan (20%). Consumption of zinc in Russia in recent years has increased and amounted to 260-280 thousand tons.
The main supplier to Russia, the Glencore company, in the 1st quarter. 2021 reduced zinc production in Kazakhstan (Kazzinc enterprise) to 37.8 thousand tons (by 12.7%), and due to problems with production in the EU, zinc from Kazakhstan was mainly sent to compensate for losses under European contracts, shipments to the Russian market decreased, and the resulting shortage of zinc greatly hampered the work of metallurgists. Therefore, at the end of 2021, domestic consumers faced not only high prices, but also a lack of zinc in principle. Individual consumers began to import zinc from Iran and Poland. Moreover, the share of imports from Iran is growing. The lower quality is offset by the lower cost of zinc.

The share of Russia in the global production of zinc (including zinc-aluminum alloys for continuous galvanizing) is small and amounts to 1.5-1.7%. However, over the past 15-20 years, several events have taken place in the domestic market of Russia that have changed the situation with the supply of this important metal for the country's economy. Until recently, there were 2 plants in the country that produced about 290 thousand tons of zinc for the needs of the domestic economy and for export. Moreover, the share of export supplies in the early 2000s. reached 80%.