ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih’s Kryvyi Rih Mining and Metallurgical Plant (AMKR, Dnipro region) has mastered the production of a new type of billets with a size of 160×160 mm in the continuous casting department of its converter shop to increase exports.
As reported in the corporate newspaper Metallurg, until recently, the department’s product mix was limited to 130×130 and 150×150 mm square billets. The new product was launched due to its economic advantages and export potential, as the 160×160 mm size is used by rolling mills in many countries.
The project was successfully implemented thanks to careful calculations, equipment modernization and well-coordinated teamwork. These products will enable the production of heavier rebar coils, which will reduce transportation costs and increase the company’s competitiveness.
The company explains that VBRS products are steel billets used in rolling mills to make rebar, wire rod, angles and other rolled products. And the billets themselves are in demand on the market.
“Rebar in coils is currently in demand on global markets. Our DS 250-4 mill produces bobbins in coils up to 2 tons. And 30 such coils can be placed in a railroad car, i.e. 60 tons. If we increase the weight of the coils, we can transport up to 67 tons of products in a railroad car. This means that we can save a lot of money on transportation, which is especially important given that transportation prices are rising. That’s why we needed more massive billets to produce heavier coils,” said Igor Smolev, Deputy Director of the Rolling Department for Technology and Quality.
In turn, Dmitry Terekhov, Director of the Iron and Steel Production Department, said that the second good reason to start manufacturing new products was that many rolling mills in the world, in particular in Germany and Poland, use 160×160 mm billets, so this is a very promising product right now.
“Together with the technical department, we explored the possibilities of producing the billets in demand and found that it was possible, despite the fact that our continuous casting machines (CCMs) were not designed for this. We decided to use CCM-1 because it produced only 150 mm squares, while the first and second machines produce both 150 mm and 130 mm. The first machine is also used for closed jet casting, so it is on this machine that we produce the vast majority of billets from high value-added steel grades (high-alloy, low-carbon, etc.),” Terekhov stated.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest producer of rolled steel in Ukraine. It specializes in long products, including rebar and wire rod. The company has a full production cycle and its production capacities are designed to produce over 6 million tons of steel, over 5 million tons of rolled products and over 5.5 million tons of pig iron annually.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of small companies, including ArcelorMittal Berislav.
In 2024, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (AMKR, Dnipro region) increased its rolled steel production by 72.1% compared to 2023, to 1 million 534,519 thousand tons from 891,438 thousand tons, and steel production by 69.9%, to 1 million 651,410 thousand tons from 971,846 thousand tons.
According to the company’s press release on Tuesday, pig iron production increased by 42.7% to 2 million 167.616 thousand tons from 1 million 519.183 thousand tons.
In addition, AMKR increased production of coke with 6% moisture by 48.5% to 1 million 254,743 thousand tons from 845,068 thousand tons, and iron ore concentrate by 71.7% to 7 million 820,682 thousand tons from 4 million 555,365 thousand tons. Iron ore production increased by 68.3% to 19 million 189.037 thousand tons from 11 million 401.600 thousand tons.
At the same time, it is noted that due to a number of problems, including a shortage of electricity supply, high electricity prices and the need to import a significant portion of it, as well as expensive logistics, and unfavorable price situation in the steel markets, AMKR was unable to break even in 2024.
In the middle of the year, the plant managed to temporarily achieve 50% utilization of its steelmaking capacity. The mining department operated at around 70-75% of pre-war production.
Mauro Longobardo, CEO of AMKR, stated that the war continues to affect all production-related processes.
“We have made every effort to achieve zero losses, we have done everything in our power to reduce costs within the company and optimize consumption. But this (breakeven – IF-U) did not happen for a number of reasons. The operation of one blast furnace and the fire at the coke oven battery due to blackout in the summer and its loss played a role here. In addition, costly logistics, unstable energy supply due to constant enemy attacks, a personnel crisis, depressed foreign markets where we can export our products – all this negatively affects our competitiveness and, accordingly, our financial results,” explained the CEO.
According to him, the plant’s business plan is focused on survival.
“So far, we are very cautious in our forecasts and realize that our results are far from the pre-war ones. We continue to invest only in a project that is strategically important for production – the construction of the Third Map tailings dump, the first phase of which we completed this year. For 2025, our goal remains the same: to be able to do it on our own without the financial assistance of the group that supports us in these difficult times. Despite all the challenges, AMKR remains in Ukraine and with Ukraine. We believe in the Victory and are ready to take part in the country’s recovery,” Longobardo summarized.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest rolled steel producer in Ukraine. It specializes in long products, including rebar and wire rod. The company has a full production cycle and its production capacity is designed to produce over 6 million tons of steel, over 5 million tons of rolled products and over 5.5 million tons of pig iron annually.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of small companies, including ArcelorMittal Berislav.
In 2024, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih’s Kryvyi Rih Mining and Metallurgical Plant (AMKR, Dnipro region) paid UAH 6.6 billion in taxes and fees to budgets of all levels, up more than 60% from the total tax payments for 2023 (UAH 4.1 billion).
According to the plant’s press release on Wednesday, UAH 727 million of the budget payments for the past year went to the state budget and UAH 3 billion to local budgets. The company also paid almost UAH 830 million in unified social tax and UAH 2.1 billion in value added tax on imports of raw materials.
In the structure of taxes and fees in 2024, the largest amount was paid in land tax. Thus, the company paid almost UAH 2.2 billion in land tax to the local community of Kryvyi Rih, which is UAH 0.8 billion more than in 2023. This tax has become the main component of the growth in payments to local budgets.
Pavlo Zadorozhny, Chief Financial Officer of AMKR, emphasized that the company remains a reliable partner of the state despite the challenges of wartime and the company’s difficult financial situation.
“In 2024, the company tried to break even and carried out significant internal work to reduce costs. However, the instability of energy supply due to enemy attacks, high electricity tariffs and the need to import it, expensive logistics, and the unfavorable situation on world markets, unfortunately, created additional obstacles for us. For the third year in a row, we have been operating at a loss,” Zadorozhny stated.
According to him, despite these problems, AMKR continues to work on improving its operational and financial performance to ensure the future development of the company and its staff, as well as stable tax revenues to the state budget and local communities.
As reported, in 2023, AMKR paid UAH 4.1 billion in taxes and duties to the budgets of all levels, which is 2.1 times less than the total amount of tax payments in 2022 (UAH 8.8 billion). Of this amount, UAH 243 million went to the state budget and UAH 2.2 billion to local budgets. In addition, almost UAH 751 million of unified social tax and UAH 856 million of value added tax on imports of raw materials were paid.
In 2022, AMKR reduced its tax payments by 39.7% due to the decline in production as a result of the war – to UAH 8.8 billion in taxes and fees compared to UAH 14.6 billion in 2021.
In 2021, AMKR paid UAH 14.6 billion in taxes and duties to the budgets of all levels, which was 2.3 times higher than the total amount of tax payments in 2020 (UAH 6.4 billion).
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest rolled steel producer in Ukraine. It specializes in long products, including rebar and wire rod.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of small companies, including ArcelorMittal Berislav.
The shareholders of Kryvyi Rih Mining and Metallurgical Plant PJSC ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (AMKR, Dnipro region) have renewed the composition of the Supervisory Board.
According to the company’s announcement in the NSSMC’s information disclosure system, the shareholders considered personnel issues at the general meeting on December 28, 2023.
At the same time, the meeting terminated the powers of the members of the Supervisory Board, re-electing for a new term the CTO and Chief Strategy Officer of ArcelorMittal Clarke David George, Chief of Staff of the CEO and Chairman of the ArcelorMittal Group Anna Escobedo, Independent Director Sergey Ishchuk, Independent Director Oleg Lagodienko and CFO of ArcelorMittal Europe; Vijay Goyal, CEO of ArcelorMittal Downstream Solutions; and Vijay Goyal, CEO of ArcelorMittal CIS. Also, Sonya Neffati, Head of Organizations and Human Resources at ArcelorMittal Luxembourg, was elected to the Supervisory Board.
In addition, the shareholders terminated the powers of the members of the audit committee and did not elect new ones in connection with the liquidation of this controlling body.
As reported, at the meeting, AMKR shareholders planned to approve the results of the company’s financial and economic activities in 2021 and 2022, determine the procedure for repayment of losses, and amend the company’s charter and bylaws.
AMKR ended 2022 with a net loss of UAH 49 billion 9.104 million, while in 2021 it made a net profit of UAH 25 billion 216.068 million. The outstanding loss by the end of 2022 amounted to UAH 3 billion 283.553 million. The value of assets halved to UAH 52 billion 682.761 million from UAH 105 billion 800.975 million in 2021.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest rolled steel producer in Ukraine. It specializes in long products, including rebar and wire rod.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, and a number of small companies, including ArcelorMittal Berislav.
Mittal Steel Corporation acquired a 93.02% stake in Kryvorizhstal at an open tender on October 24, 2005 for UAH 24.2 billion at a starting price of UAH 10 billion, after which the plant was renamed Mittal Steel Kryvyi Rih and later ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih.
According to the company, Arcelor Mittal Duisburg GmbH (Germany) owns 95.128% of its shares.
The authorized capital of the plant is UAH 3 billion 859.533 million.
ArcelorMittal Beryslav (Beryslav, Kherson region), one of ArcelorMittal’s Ukrainian subsidiaries, is increasing its shipment of limestone for ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih’s steelmaking operations.
According to the company’s press release, the production process was resumed this May after it was forced to stop.
It is specified that the enterprise is located in the village of Arkhangelskoye in Kherson region. It was forced to stop work completely in February 2022 because of the enemy offensive. Since that time, this territory was occupied, but on October 3, soldiers of the 129th Krivoy Rog brigade of territorial defense of the AFU liberated the settlements of Mirolyubovka and Arkhangelskoye.
“The real feat of the military allowed us to return to active work in the spring of 2023. Since March we began to ship the accumulated limestone from our warehouses. This raw material is used by ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih sinter plant for sinter production. Until the end of April the difficult demining of our territory continued, and from May 1 we were able to begin extraction of limestone in the quarry,” – said ArcelorMittal Berislav General Director Leonid Smolyarenko, quoted by the press service, and stressed that the company managed to keep its staff.
In turn, deputy director general of AMKR for production (mining department) Vladimir Tesliuk noted the importance of getting the limestone mining company back to work, because the production processes in the company are interrelated. “Now we are trying to do everything to strengthen the enterprise in Arkhangelsk,” he said.
Since March 2023 “ArcelorMittal Berislav” shipped for Krivoy Rog mining company almost 47 thousand tons of limestone (including stockpiles), production was almost 20 thousand tons. Pre-war limestone shipment volume exceeded 500 thousand tons per year. The projected shipment figure for 2023 is about 200 thousand tons of limestone for the production needs of AMKR.
Tesluk also added that part of the village was in ruins after de-occupation, so AMKR helps to restore its infrastructure.
ArcelorMittal Beryslav” PJSC (earlier – “Beryslav construction materials plant” JSC, established in 1994 by the transformation of the state enterprise of the same name) is mainly engaged in the limestone mining, provides up to 30% of the needs of “ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih” integrated iron and steel works in this raw material.
ArcelorMittal acquired Beryslavskiy plant of construction materials in July 2010.
ArcelorMittal owns the largest mining and metallurgical plant ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog in Ukraine and also a number of smaller companies, in particular PJSC ArcelorMittal Beryslav.
“ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the largest producer of rolled steel in Ukraine, specializing in the production of long products, in particular rebar and wire rod.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih PJSC (AMKR, Dnipropetrovsk Region) has reduced output of metallurgical coke at its coke-chemical division by 66.7% in January-November this year compared to the same period last year, to 880 thousand tons.
As a company representative told Interfax-Ukraine news agency, in November the company produced 44 thousand tons of metallurgical coke.
At the same time, in January-November 2022 the gross coke output of 6% moisture at AMKR exceeded 1 mln tonnes, including 51 thnd tonnes in November.
Coke production at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih in eleven months of 2021 increased by 10% to 2.640 million tons, including 188 thousand tons in November last year.
In 11 months of 2022, the company supplied 1.3 million tons of coal concentrate, including 396 thousand tons of domestic coal, 390 thousand tons from Russia (before war), 65 thousand tons from Kazakhstan, 34 thousand tons from Poland, 15 thousand tons from Czech Republic, 208 thousand tons from USA and 187 thousand tons from Australia. In November, the AMKR supplied 50 thousand tons of coal, including 42 thousand tons of domestically mined coal, 7 thousand tons from Poland.
As earlier reported, in January-November 2022, Ukrainian coke plants reduced the production of gross coke 6% moisture content by 58.1% compared to the same period last year – up to 3.66 million tons. In November they produced 235 thousand tons of gross coke, including 204 thousand tons of metallurgical coke. For 11 months of 2022 metallurgical coke production was 3.14 million tons.
For 11 months of 2022, 4.254 million tons of coal concentrate (11M-2021 – 11.834 million tons), including Ukrainian production – 2.853 million tons, imported from Russia (before war) 623.9 thousand tons, from Kazakhstan (before war) – 65.4 thousand tons, Poland – 36.3 thousand tons, Czech Republic – 38.8 thousand tons, USA – 448.6 thousand tons and Australia – 187.3 thousand tons were supplied to domestic coke plants. Including 308 thousand tons of concentrate supplied in November, including 299 thousand tons of Ukrainian production.
As reported, Ukraine in 2021 decreased coke output by 1.3% compared with 2020 – to 9.543 million tons.
