Despite the survival mode and two years of losses due to the war, the mining and metallurgical group Metinvest will increase its investments to $500 million in 2026, said Alexander Vodoviz, head of the group’s CEO office, at the event organized by NV “Ukraine and the world ahead 2026.”
He previously reported that Metinvest Group had reduced its investments in the company to approximately $300 million per year from $1-1.1 billion since the war began.
According to him, before the war, the company employed 120,000 people, but now their number has fallen to 50,000. More than 12,000 have served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine—almost one in four—and more than 1,500 have died.
“Before the war, we were the largest exporter, and today we remain the largest exporter. But now we are in survival mode. We are not looking at any new strategic investments at the moment. Before the war, Metinvest was the largest private investor in Ukraine. We invested an average of about $1 billion in direct investments “in iron” and in factories,” Vodoviz said.
He added that current investment plans are about $500 million for 2026.
“These are quite ambitious plans, given that the company has been unprofitable for the second year in a row. We have not received any positive cash flow for the second year in a row, and our shareholders are helping us here,” said the top manager, specifying that the company is helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the families of employees who are serving.
Vodoviz also noted that the company cannot currently invest on a large scale as it did before the war, in particular due to military risks, which make banks afraid to lend.
“We do not currently have free access to funds. There are Ukrainian banks where you can get these funds, but the “5-7-9” program is not entirely suitable for large businesses because we do not have investments of UAH 100 million. Our investments start at $20-30 million. And banks do not give money because they say, ‘You have a war, you have assets near the conflict zone. We don’t have any insurance to cover this. Wait until the war is over, and maybe something will happen,” explained the office manager.
He also said that Metinvest had been in talks with investment company BlackRock about raising funds.
“We had negotiations with BlackRock for a whole year. We talked to them, they did a great job, they found investors in the United States. We developed projects and showed them programs. And in the end, these investors say: ‘Everything is great, guys, hang in there! But after the war,’” said the group’s representative.
The top manager noted that there are currently many programs for the country’s recovery, but they are not allocating large sums of money: “These funds are in a kind of frozen state, and we do not have access to them, so we do not see any strong motives for investing at the moment.”
“Let’s say we found the money, we want to invest, we want to build another blast furnace. But we don’t have the people. I’m not going to talk about the “18-22 years” law here, when we had 200 people leaving every day — the cream of the crop. And where can we find these people? For example, to build a new blast furnace, we need 3,000 people. But it’s impossible to find them,” Vodoviz said.
He also reminded that Europe is now introducing the CBA, and this will hit the economy very hard, especially exporters, as they will have to pay between €50 and €100 per ton of steel if they sell to the EU.
“We are looking at new products. We want to invest in these new products, such as HBI, or hot briquetted iron, which has very low CO2 emissions. And we are now looking for partners for these projects at our iron ore mines. There is demand for these products at European metallurgical plants, if anything remains there, because they are also going bankrupt one after another,” Vodoviz said.
The company is also analyzing electricity generation projects in order to invest in them due to constant blackouts.
“Due to constant airstrikes, our electricity is being knocked out. And because of the last airstrike, when we were down for a day or two, we lost millions of dollars. I’m not even talking about the losses from the strike itself,” said the top manager.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. The group’s enterprises are located mainly in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it. Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of the Metinvest Group.
Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group has acquired Tubular Products Iasi S.A. (AMTP Iasi), a pipe plant in Romania controlled by ArcelorMittal S.A. (Luxembourg), from ArcelorMittal. According to information released by the company on Wednesday, the group continues to promote synergy between the metallurgical industries of Ukraine and the EU.
It is specified that on December 16, Metinvest closed a deal to acquire ArcelorMittal Tubular Products Iași, located in the Romanian city of Iași.
The plant produces welded structural pipes for construction, mechanical engineering, infrastructure, and the agricultural sector. Its maximum capacity is 240,000 tons of products per year.
“Even before the war, Metinvest began building bridges between the metallurgical industries of Ukraine and the EU. Therefore, the new plant is a unique opportunity for us to keep two enterprises busy at once – in Iași and Zaporizhia. This is part of our contribution to post-war recovery. I am confident that the plant’s products will be in demand not only in the EU, but also in the restoration of Ukraine’s infrastructure and industry damaged by the war,” commented Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, on the completion of the deal.
The enterprise became Metinvest’s first production site in Romania. Negotiations on the acquisition of the plant lasted several months. On November 24, 2025, the group received approval from the European Commission to acquire the asset under the European Union Merger Regulation, and the next day, approval from Romania’s national competition authority following a foreign investment screening procedure.
Metinvest’s enterprises in Ukraine have historically produced large volumes of hot-rolled coils for both the domestic market and export. The location of the asset in Romania, just 600 km from Zaporizhia, allows us to supply up to 180,000 tons of hot-rolled coils produced by Zaporizhstal annually. This will provide the Romanian plant with regular orders and stable operation,” said Metinvest’s Chief Operating Officer Alexander Mironenko.
It is also reported that in 2026, the asset is planned to be integrated into Metinvest’s production and organizational chains. The plant has five pipe mills, two longitudinal cutting lines, and two coating lines. Metinvest will comply with all the terms of the employment contracts with the employees of the enterprise in Iasi.
It should be noted that, in addition to Ukraine and Romania, the group has assets in Italy, Bulgaria, the UK, and the US.
AMTP Iasi is registered in Romania and is actively involved in the production and supply of small welded carbon steel pipes.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine – in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions – as well as in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of the Metinvest Group.
Metinvest-SMZ, the network of service metal centers belonging to the Metinvest Group in Ukraine, supplied nearly 3,000 tons of specially cut sheet metal for the manufacture of pipes for Kryvyi Rih’s heating networks.
According to the company, after last year’s difficult situation with heat supply, when the city faced problems with heating homes and infrastructure due to wear and tear and accidents on heating networks, almost 40% of consumers were left without heat.
Therefore, Kryvyi Rih held a tender for the supply of large-diameter pipes with a total weight of 3,800 tons in preparation for the current heating season.
Metinvest-SMZ played an important role in the project by supplying rolled sheet metal.
This metal was used to manufacture pipes for the Kryvyi Rih heating plant measuring 820×10 mm, 720×10 mm, and 630×8 mm.
Deliveries began in August, providing the city with the materials needed to stabilize heat supply in the new heating season.
Metinvest-SMZ LLC is the largest network of service metal centers in Ukraine, operating on the market since 2003. The LLC’s metal centers are located in key industrial cities of the country, such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Odesa, and many others.
The company’s authorized capital is UAH 17.205 million.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine – in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions – as well as in European countries. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of the Metinvest Group.
The Kametstal plant, part of the Metinvest mining and metallurgical group (Kamensk, Dnipropetrovsk region), has completed the reconstruction of continuous casting machine No. 1 in the converter shop as part of its 2025 investment program.
According to the company, following the successful completion of the second stage of the investment project, key equipment of the machine’s pulling and straightening devices has been upgraded.
It is specified that new motor reducers for the pulling and straightening device were installed on each of the seven streams of the CCMC-1, on which thermal shielding was also performed.
“In this way, steelmakers have solved the urgent issue of extending the service life of motor reducers, which ensure the stable movement of the pulling and straightening devices. Previously, this equipment failed prematurely due to the destructive effects of high temperatures,” the report states.
Encoders were also installed and put into operation on all upper motors of the gear motors. These devices, thanks to feedback in control, make it possible to control and stabilize the speed of the continuously cast billet and, thus, increase the accuracy of its cutting.
The second stage of the reconstruction of the No. 1 continuous casting machine was carried out without additional machine stoppages, given the need to fulfill orders for commercial steel products, particularly those of higher quality, for domestic and European customers. Each stream was technically prepared in advance for the replacement of equipment, and during the technological stoppage, updates were carried out in pit stop mode.
As a result of the second stage of reconstruction, metallurgists received a number of technical and economic advantages: several times longer service life of the motor reducers of the stoves; maximum precision of cutting the billets, which made it possible to reduce metal consumption. In addition, the technical solutions implemented optimized the operation of the pulling and straightening device to reduce electricity consumption on the upper and lower motor reducers by 1.2 kW*hour while maintaining stable casting on the machine.
Kametstal is part of the Metinvest Group.
The Unisteel plant (Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region), which produces galvanized cold-rolled flat products and is part of the Metinvest Group, incurred a net loss of UAH 6.389 million in January-September this year, compared to UAH 196.913 million in the same period last year.
According to the company’s interim report, which is available to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, its profit in the third quarter of 2025 amounted to UAH 37.532 million.
Revenue for this period increased by 0.3% to UAH 2 billion 653.726 million.
The uncovered loss at the end of September amounted to UAH 1 billion 46.731 million.
The LLC ended 2024 with a loss of UAH 363.768 million, while in 2023 this figure was UAH 255.057 million.
The main products manufactured by the plant are galvanized flat rolled products with a thickness of 0.40 mm to 2.50 mm, a width of 600 to 1250 mm, and a coating class (Zn) of 60-275 g/m². The volume of finished product sales in 2024 and 2023 amounted to 113,321 thousand tons and 72,500 thousand tons, respectively. In 2024, 37,917 thousand tons (32.46%) were exported and 75,404 thousand tons (66.54%) were sold on the domestic market.
In 2024, the company employed 144 people.
The Unistil plant, which produces cold-rolled galvanized flat products with a capacity of over 100 thousand tons per year, was built in 2007-2010. It is equipped with equipment from Dongbu Machinery Co., LTD (South Korea).
The authorized capital of Unistil LLC is UAH 6.01 million.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine – in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions – as well as in European countries. The main shareholders of the holding company are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of the Metinvest Group.
The Kametstal plant, part of the Metinvest mining and metallurgical group, established on the premises of the Dniprovsky Metallurgical Combine (DMK, Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region), earned a net profit of UAH 1 billion 345.153 million in January-September this year, while the same period in 2024 ended with a net loss of UAH 625.830 million.
According to the company’s interim report, available to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, profit in the third quarter amounted to UAH 711.232 million.
Net income for this period increased by 9% to UAH 42 billion 454.272 million.
The uncovered loss at the end of September amounted to UAH 493.835 million.
The plant ended 2024 with a loss of UAH 237.705 million, while in 2023 it amounted to UAH 912.333 million. The plant ended 2022 with a net loss of UAH 883.119 million, while in 2021 it received a net profit of UAH 120.277 million.
KAMETSTAL was established on the basis of PJSC Dniprovsky Coke Chemical Plant (DKHP) and CMK PJSC Dniprovsky Metallurgical Plant (DMK). The average number of full-time employees in the third quarter of 2025 was 7,226.
According to the NDU for the third quarter of 2025, Metinvest B.V. (Netherlands) owns 100% of the company’s shares.
The authorized capital of PJSC Kametstal is UAH 170.584 million.
