The situation in Ukraine’s metallurgical sector is currently catastrophic; in particular, shelling at Metinvest Group facilities has destroyed five furnaces, and two furnaces at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (AMKR, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast)—the plants are not operating, said the head of the office of Metinvest Group CEO
Oleksandr Vodovyz, at the Economic Resilience Forum organized by Forbes Ukraine in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“Absolutely all the plants have been destroyed. These include Arcelor, Metinvest, the Petrovsky Plant (Yaroslavsky DMZ), and Interpipe. They were hit several times. Many people were killed. We are not operating. I know that Arcelor is not operating. As far as I know, the Petrovsky Plant has also been shut down. And Interpipe, as far as I know, hasn’t repaired its transformer either,” said Vodoviz.
According to him, there was a week in September when Ukraine did not produce a single metric ton of steel for the first time in 100 years, and Metinvest’s facilities remain shut down.
“We’re at a standstill, assessing (the possibilities for resuming operations). We tried to restart production at Zaporizhstal: we fired up the furnace, it ran for 10 hours, and then—a second failure. Just so you understand, starting up the furnace costs $50 million, and the furnace itself costs $0.5 billion. Repairing it in any way would require enormous funds,” the top manager explained.
He added that the company had reached out to various ministries for help in this situation, but the assistance offered amounted to only 2–5 million hryvnias.
Vodoviz, while agreeing with the need to support small businesses, also emphasized that large businesses are the foundation upon which small businesses operate.
“They supply us with water, cables, and perform various services. We have 50,000 contractors. Unfortunately, there is currently no solution for large businesses. One respected individual asked the Ministry of Economy: ‘What’s the plan?’ Have any of you heard this plan? I haven’t. There is no plan right now. That’s why we’d like to hear what the plan is. What’s next? Should we lay off people or not? We’re all just waiting to see what happens,” said the head of the CEO’s office at Metinvest.
According to him, the group is currently planning its actions no more than a month in advance.
“No one is looking further than six months ahead. Everyone is sitting back and watching to see what happens. My view is this, and we see for ourselves that the economic situation is extraordinary. And extraordinary decisions are needed. You can’t live in an extraordinary situation and make decisions that are made as usual,” the expert believes.
When asked about the amount of investment needed for recovery, Vodoviz noted that the group has not yet calculated this.
“We haven’t calculated it yet, but as an example, I mentioned that one furnace costs $500 million if built from scratch, and all five of our furnaces are damaged. Arcelor has two damaged ones. That’s billions of dollars. But we’re assessing the situation. Right now, we definitely won’t be investing in reconstruction because we don’t understand how the situation will develop further,” the top manager explained.
He noted that if the situation changes in any way within a month or two, then appropriate decisions will be made, but for now, there are none. He clarified that at Metinvest, decision-making depends on three factors, and not all of them are military in nature. Although the main one—the first—is shelling and attacks on industrial facilities.
“The second is the ports. Right now, we’re not shipping out or exporting, even though we were the country’s largest exporter until 2026. And the third factor, strange as it may seem, is our European partners, who have completely blocked our exports of steel products. They imposed SWAM; they imposed quotas. And yet they promised us this wouldn’t happen. We held negotiations with both the Ministry of European Integration and the Ministry of Economy. But the EU implemented these measures anyway,” Vodoviz stated.
According to him, these are the three main major problems that need to be resolved.
Regarding state aid, the manager stated: “We don’t turn to the government; we don’t ask for any grants; we don’t want the government to finance us. We simply want a level playing field. There is, for example, the Ukraine Facility program. I know that some funds are being allocated through the Ukraine Facility. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to this program, although we would like to,” said the top executive.
As for ideas about raising taxes, in his opinion, “they won’t lead to anything good.”
“I’m sure any business would say here: don’t get in our way,” concluded Vodoviz.
“Metinvest” is a vertically integrated group consisting of mining and metallurgical enterprises. The group’s enterprises are located primarily in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The holding’s main shareholders are the SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it. Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of the Metinvest Group.
MANUFACTURING, METALLURGY, METINVEST, mining and metallurgical complex, STEEL
