OREANDA-NEWS. February 15, 2008. Donbass Fuel-Energy Company Ltd. has signed an agreement to produce and deliver the mining equipment (hydraulic props and advanced cylinders) manufactured by Ostroj company (the Czech Republic) for Pavlogradskaya and Zapadno-Donbasskaya mines to an amount of more than USD 2.8 m, as UNIAN was informed at the Company’s Press-Service.

According to their information, the use of these mechanisms will noticeably help cut the maintenance costs of power support units and extend their useful life before the first overhaul and which furthermore exceeds by six times the lifetime of units produced in Ukraine.

This has been the second big equipment upgrading project at the coal assets of DTEK in 2008, as they said at the Company. In January, the company signed an agreement to produce and deliver a plough longwall set for Pavlogradugol with Bucyrus DBT Europe GmbH (Germany). The contract amount totalled over ?29m.

DTEK buys mining equipment through a documentary L/C with post-funding. Swedbank (Ukraine) is a financial partner of DTEK in the agreement with Bucyrus DBT Europe GmbH, while the contract with Ostroj is funded by Alfa-Bank (Ukraine). DTEK is working in many areas to modernize its assets in line with a five-year development strategy. We are going to invest $1.1 bln into the development of the coal business by 2011. This will improve its competitiveness both in Ukraine and in the international market’, the Company’s Press-Service quoted the words of the DTEK Coal Production and Enrichment Director, Evgeniy ROMASCHIN.

UNIAN. ‘Donbass Fuel-Energy Company’ (DTEK) is the first Ukrainian vertically integrated energy company. The coal assets of DTEK are Pavlogradugol OJSC and Komsomolets Donbassa Mine OJSC.

Pavlogradugol OJSC is the largest coal-mining company in Ukraine, comprising 10 mines and other structural units. As of 2007, the volume of coal output at Pavlogradugol totalled 16.4% of the national output.