HeidelbergCement halts production at Ukraine factory

HeidelbergCement has halted production at its 1.8Mta cement factory in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels in the regions wanted to impose their own agenda on the production process, a HeidelbergCement spokesperson has said.

“The separatists had their own ideas about how the business should be run,” said the German building materials group, which has three plants in Ukraine.

The company was unwilling to co-operate with the separatists and would abide by EU sanctions, it said. It declined to reveal what demands the separatists had made. he plant’s 500 local employees are carrying out only cleaning duties. HeidelbergCement has taken action to protect its IT systems by disconnecting local computers from its network.

HeidelbergCement's other two Ukraine plants, Kryvyi Rih and Dniprocement, are not affected.

During the first nine months of this year, HeidelbergCement reported an 18 per cent decline in shipments from its Ukraine operations because of the political situation in the country.