Ferrexpo, a mining company with assets in Ukraine, ended the first half of 2026 with a net loss of $14.9 million, which is 13.2 times less than in the first half of 2025, according to the company’s report released on Friday.
According to the report, revenue fell 2.3-fold to $196 million due to a decline in sales volume, while EBITDA was negative at $4 million, compared to a positive $4 million in the first half of 2025, reflecting the combined impact of lower sales volumes and selling prices, as well as rising production costs.
Following the morning release of the financial results, the stock rose from 28.9 pence to 32.88 pence and closed at 32.48 pence, representing a 13.33% increase over the previous day’s closing price. The last time the stock traded at such a high price was more than five months ago.
Ferrexpo noted that it deliberately reduced capital expenditures (CapEx) to $10 million from $28 million in January–June 2025, allocating 88% of these expenditures to projects necessary to sustain operations and only 12% to development projects.
Due to prolonged delays in VAT refunds and the resulting decline in financial liquidity, the group was forced to reduce production to a single pellet production line, according to the report.
Total commercial output for the first half of the year amounted to 1.556 million metric tons, which is 40% less than in the previous half-year (ending December 31, 2025) and 54% less than in the first half of 2025.
The production mix in the first half of 2026 consisted of 89% pellets and 11% marketable concentrate, compared to 61% and 39%, respectively, in the first half of 2025, when the higher share of concentrate production provided additional market opportunities during a period of reduced demand for pellets and lower market premiums, Ferrexpo noted.
Interim Chairman of the Board Lucio Genovese recalled that in early September, the company was able to raise $100 million through an additional share issuance, which significantly strengthened its liquidity position and provided additional financial stability and greater flexibility to manage the ongoing operational and financial pressures facing the business.
“However, the additional capital does not resolve the underlying issues arising from the prolonged withholding of VAT refunds, the war in Ukraine, constraints on logistics and energy infrastructure, as well as the need to maintain disciplined cash and working capital management,” he noted.
On Friday Ferrexpo clarified that C1 production costs rose to $81.3 per metric ton from $77.1 in the first half of 2025 due to increased mining and maintenance activities, the impact of higher electricity and fuel prices, and rising personnel costs.
It is noted that the group has made significant efforts to reduce costs in order to maintain financial stability. These measures include reducing employees’ working hours, cutting back on the procurement of goods and services, and suspending all non-critical capital expenditures, overhead costs, and corporate social responsibility expenditures.
In addition, there were no impairment losses in the first half of 2026, whereas in the first half of 2025, they amounted to $154 million.
In the report, Genovese emphasized that the continued suspension of VAT refunds by Ukrainian tax authorities remains a significant financial challenge: as of June 30, the net balance of VAT pending refund stood at $82.7 million, and as of September 24, the State Tax Service had suspended VAT refunds totaling 3.885 billion UAH, or $86.9 million.
The report also notes that during the first six months of 2026, Ferrexpo received news of the deaths of 11 more colleagues who served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, bringing the total number of fatalities since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion to 67, whereas in 2024 and 2025, the number of fatalities was 11 each year.
According to the report, as of the end of June 2026, 804 Ferrexpo employees were serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and 218 had been demobilized, whereas at the end of 2025, those figures were 771 and 194, respectively, and a year earlier—706 and 160.
Ferrexpo owns 100% of Yeristovsky GOK LLC, 99.9% of Bilanivsky GOK LLC, and 100% of the shares of Poltava GOK PJSC.
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) suspended trading in Ferrexpo shares in early May due to the company’s inability to publish its annual financial statements on time, but resumed trading on September 7.
In 2025, the company’s revenue fell by 16% to $787 million, its EBITDA dropped 2.5 times to $28 million, and its net loss rose nearly 4.5 times to $223.9 million.
