The business daily Delo reported that Russia’s Metalloinvest, controlled by Alisher Usmanov, is close to acquiring Sukha Balka iron ore (SUBA) from Ukraine’s Privat group. Metalloinvest’s CEO Dmitry Tarasov said there was no deal at present but it would be in line with Metalloinvest’s expansion strategy, whereas Privat’s spokesmen denied the story. SUBA mined 3.2m mt of iron ore last year. Andriy Gostik: We estimate that SUBA would cost $80m-100m. A sale seems logical for Privat which has excess iron ore capacity and ambitious plans in other sectors.