Ukraine’s ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih restarts second blast furnace

Published by:Vlada Novokreshchenova<>
11 Apr 2025 @ 16:15 UTC
Ukrainian steelmaker ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (AMKR), a subsidiary of international company ArcelorMittal with headquarters in Luxembourg, restarted its second blast furnace (No6) earlier in April, the company told the market via its gazette Metalurg on Friday April 11.

Currently, the furnace is operating stably and has reached the planned production volume of 3.4 tonnes of pig iron per day, according to the report.
The equipment was stopped in the fourth quarter of 2024for the company to survive in war conditions, due to high electricity tariffs for industrial enterprises in Ukraine and an unfavorable situation in the sales markets. Until the restart of blast furnace No6, it had been operating only one blast furnace, No8.
According to a source with the company, the restart of the second blast furnace will allow AMKR to produce more of both pig iron and rolled steel, with demand for these products expected to be good.
Despite unfavorable market conditions, the company managed to increase output last year.
In 2024, AMKR produced 2.1 million tonnes of pig iron, 1.65 million tonnes of crude steel and 1.5 million tonnes of rolled steel products. This compared with 1.5 million tonnes of pig iron, 971,846 tonnes of crude steel and 891,438 tonnes of rolled steel in 2023.
According to chief executive officer Mauro Longobardo, under war conditions while the country defends itself from the Russian invasion that began in 2022, the business made maximum efforts and optimized its spending, but a number of factors made it impossible to achieve profitability.
Among these factors, Longobardo listed operating with a single blast furnace, the loss of the coke battery due to a fire, expensive logistics, unstable energy supply due to enemy attacks, a staff crisis and the difficult situations in external markets.
In a speech at the Business Wisdom Summit 2025 in Kyiv on Friday, Longobardo said that steadily increasing energy prices in Ukraine was the key threat to the company’s performance, negatively affecting output and reducing its global competitiveness.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, parent company ArcelorMittal has invested $1 billion in its Ukrainian asset, he added.
For 2025, our goal remains unchanged – to manage on our own, without the financial assistance of the group, which has been supporting us in these difficult times, Longobardo said in conversation with local press representatives.
AMKR is a vertically integrated company able to produce 5.5 million tonnes per year of pig iron, more than 6 million tpy of crude steel, and more than 5 million tpy of rolled products.