News: AYM Ukraine cancels privatisation tender on titanium and zirconium miner

KYIV, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine has cancelled the privatisation auction for the sale of Europe's largest titanium and zirconium miner, United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC), due to the lack of participants, the state property fund said on Friday.

The same auction in August was also cancelled for this reason.

"The state property fund received two applications for participation in the auction...one of which does not meet the requirements of current legislation," the fund said in a statement.

It noted that a new auction could be set for December. The fund has said the starting price for 100% of UMCC had been set at 3.7 billion hryvnias ($140.69 million) .

UMCC is among the top 10 global miners of titanium and zirconium ores and its global market share was 2.3% for ilmenite, 6.2% for rutile and 1.4% for zircon in 2020, according to Ukrainian officials.

UMCC provides raw materials that have a wide range of uses including steelmaking, glassmaking and traditional ceramics, with titanium also used as an important alloying agent.

($1 = 26.2992 hryvnias)