Interpipe to increase supplies of wrought steel wheels to Belarus

According to Interpipe’s press release, the company is going to increase supplies of wrought steel wheels to Belarus Automobile Plant (BelAZ) in 2019–2020.

Thus, in 2020, Interpipe will increase supplies to BelAZ more than thrice compared to 2019 — up to 20 thousand pieces.

The end consumer of Ukrainian wheels will be Mogilev Railway Car Building Plant which is a part of BelAZ HOLDING.

“In summer, the Eurasian Economic Commission suspended the 34.22% anti-dumping duty on Ukrainian wrought steel wheels. This was a positive signal for the railway industry in the CIS and allowed signing a long-term contract with one of the largest consumers in the Belarusian market,” said Fadi Hraibi, Interpipe CEO.

According to Mr Hraibi, Interpipe already supplies pipes for heavy engineering to BelAZ, that’s why the expansion of partnership in the wrought steel wheel segment will only enhance cooperation between the parties.

“The suspension of the anti-dumping duty brought a possibility to purchase wrought steel wheels from Interpipe at a competitive price. This enabled a multifold increase in commodity turnover between our companies and fully resolved the components supply problem faced by Mogilev Railway Car Building Plant,” said Petr Parkhomchik, BelAZ HOLDING CEO.

According to Mr Parkhomchik, BelAZ suffered from the wrought wheels deficit caused by the development of the railway industry and the increase of the anti-dumping duty on Ukrainian wheels in April 2018.

In 2018, Interpipe produced 189 thousand wrought steel wheels which is by 12.7% more than in the previous year. According to GMK Center, the share of railway products in the company’s sales mix is around 22%.