Explosives scarcity threatens EU drive to arm Ukraine

Europe’s push to make arms for Ukraine has been hobbled by a scarcity of explosives, which business insiders concern will delay efforts to spice up shell manufacturing by as a lot as three years.

Scarce provides of gunpowder, plastic explosives and TNT have left business unable to quickly meet anticipated EU orders for Ukraine, no matter how a lot cash is thrown on the downside, in line with officers and producers.

The provision chain constraints underline how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has badly uncovered Europe’s insufficient arms shares and weak home manufacturing capability, run down by a long time of under-investment.

“The basic downside is that the European defence business just isn’t in good condition for large-scale warfare manufacturing,” mentioned one German official.

Europe is making an attempt to fulfill Kyiv’s warfare combating wants by pumping money into the defence sector, notably to encourage growth of 155mm artillery manufacturing. There’s dire want for shells, each to restock nationwide armouries and keep provides to Ukrainian forces.

However producers, business executives and EU officers warn elevated demand could solely push up costs which have already jumped a fifth over the previous yr.

“It’s very troublesome to extend manufacturing of artillery ammunition, particularly the heavy, large-calibre ammunition, in a short while,” mentioned Jiří Hynek, chair of the Defence and Safety Trade Affiliation of the Czech Republic. “A brand new artillery manufacturing unit may be very straightforward, however easy methods to produce extra artillery projectiles with out uncooked supplies?”

The feedback come forward of a gathering of EU overseas and defence ministers in Brussels on Monday to debate a package deal of two €1bn proposals to hurry up fast 155mm shipments to Ukraine and incentivise nations to kind joint artillery buy contracts.

Defence business officers say Europe has a restricted provide of explosives similar to gunpowder, TNT and nitrocellulose that are needed to supply shells. “The bottlenecks for our capability are primarily [explosive] powders, that are in brief provide throughout Europe,” mentioned one.

“It’s not attainable to extend, in a short while, nitrocellulose [production] . . . In Europe there are not any vital producers of the uncooked supplies we want,” mentioned Hynek, referring to a primary ingredient of gunpowder. “If I wish to enhance manufacturing of gunpowder I would like most likely three years.”

Explosia, a Czech state-owned producer that’s one in every of Europe’s largest suppliers of explosives to ammunition factories, instructed the FT that its manufacturing of propellants utilized in 155mm artillery is “working at full capability” and wouldn’t be elevated till 2026.

“Investments are beneath method to additional enhance our manufacturing capability, however it is a three-year undertaking, not a number of months’ job,” mentioned Martin Vencl, the corporate’s spokesperson.

This week Romania’s authorities mentioned it was in talks with US and South Korean firms to construct a gunpowder manufacturing unit within the nation. Its final such plant was shut down in 2004.

Even EU officers who’ve championed the monetary incentive packages privately admit that European artillery producers have made clear to them that scaling up output is not going to be a simple job.

“We’re in favour of strengthening the defence business. But when the results of this EU initiative is that you’ve got a second bidder for a similar scarce useful resource, that can have an effect on value,” mentioned one German official. “And the arms firms are getting wealthy sufficient already.”

“We have now to tread with care . . . Nobody needs to subsidise firms which might be already coining it in,” he added.

Fábrica Municiones de Granada (FMG), one in every of Spain’s two 155mm artillery producers, has been working at full capability since final October, producing shells for a buying and selling firm that sells them on to Ukraine. However Antonio Caro, FMG’s director-general, mentioned it had taken four-to-five months to scale up due to the issue of acquiring primary supplies and elements.

“Our primary downside is major supplies,” Caro mentioned. “Provides for ammunition are very strained around the globe as a result of all of the factories, like us, are at 100 per cent.”

“There aren’t too many factories [producing materials like TNT and nitrocellulose] in Europe and so they’re at 100 per cent too, so we now have to begin wanting in India, in Korea, in different nations additional away,” he mentioned.

Gianclaudio Torlizzi, an adviser to Italy’s defence ministry, agreed, saying: “We have to discover new sources of provide . . . from nations we had not historically approached,” he mentioned. “Every European nation needs to guard its availability of uncooked supplies.”

The price of primary supplies had “doubled and in some instances tripled”, Caro mentioned. These will increase and the surge in demand had led to increased costs for munitions, though the rise has been much less pronounced. A typical shell at present prices €850, roughly 20 per cent greater than earlier than the Russian invasion, he mentioned.

For now FMG, which is owned by Slovak group MSM, has no plans to extend capability additional. “Hopefully the warfare might be over quickly,” Caro mentioned.

MSM additionally produces 155mm shells in Slovakia and mentioned it “plans to construct a brand new manufacturing corridor” to extend artillery output, however declined to supply a timeline.

Extra reporting by Raphael Minder in Warsaw and Amy Kazmin in Rome