ArcelorMittal: trouble not only from ILVA, but also in Kazakhstan, due to low investments
If ArcelorMittal is contested in Italy for Ilva management and lack of investments, don't think that abroad, even in Central Asia, is better.
Steel giant ArcelorMittal faces a multimillion-dollar fine in Kazakhstan, with civil servants stepping up calls for modernization in the wake of yet another fatal accident at the steel giant's local branch.
An explosion that claimed the lives of five workers in the city of Shakhtinsk on November 3 has once again called into question the safety and environmental compliance of the company's operations, and it couldn't have come at a worse time.
Also for electoral reasons, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev harshly reproached ArcelorMittal for a predatory entrepreneurial attitude that led to 100 deaths at work from 2006 to 2022. "Despite numerous warnings and addresses from state bodies, the situation is not improving" Tokayev said during a trip to the western Mangystau region.
This week, Environment Minister Serikkali Brekeshev visited the city of Temirtau, where the steel plant is based, and told residents that the company would be fined around 6 billion tenge (nearly $13 million ), pending a court decision, after an inspection by the authorities revealed "serious violations of environmental legislation".
The violations included "an excess of maximum permitted emissions, inefficient operation of treatment plants, lack of permits," Brekeshev said.
It's not clear whether the inspection Brekeshev spoke of on Nov. 16 involved the company's mines or the steel mills that the mines feed.
It would have been clearer if that check had been the same one Brekeshev employee Zulfukhar Zholdasov described on November 4, one day after the Shakhtinsk explosion. On that occasion an outraged Zholdasov, chairman of the ministry's environmental regulation committee, told reporters that the company had not been very cooperative, and even suggested that ArcelorMittal Kazakhstan's operations could be suspended.
ArcelorMittal Kazakhstan no longer appears to enjoy the privileges it held under former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose career began in the same steel mills it acquired in the 1990s. It was Nazarbayev who convinced the multinational – now the largest steel producer in the world – to make the investment in the Central Asian country.
A fine of the size Brekeshev alludes to would be the heaviest ever imposed on ArcelorMittal Kazakhstan to date, as many previous offenses have resulted in only token punishments.
The mine explosion also stirred emotions in the sleepy parliament, with a ruling party MP, Yuri Zhilin, calling for a travel ban for top management and, in the absence of imminent improvements, a search for new investors to replace the Indian group.
ArcelorMittal founder Lakshmi Mittal met with Tokayev in Astana in September and pledged to invest over $1 billion to modernize the steel mills.
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The article ArcelorMittal: trouble not only from ILVA, but even in Kazakhstan, due to scarce investments comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/arcelormittal-grane-non-solo-da-ilva-ma-perfino-in-kazakistan-per-gli-scarsi-investimenti/ on Tue, 22 Nov 2022 10:30:37 +0000.