5 September 2023
The largest Ukrainian steel producers for the first half of 2023
With the improvement of the electricity supply situation, starting from February of this year, Ukrainian metallurgical plants are improving their operating performance.
Total steel production in Ukraine reached an all-time monthly low in December 2022, amounting to only about 110,000 tons. Already from January 2023, production figures began to improve, significant growth occurred in February, when the situation with energy supply began to improve.
Production continued to grow until June, when there was a decline caused by the impact of the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP resulted in limited water supply to the largest Ukrainian plant ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, as well as repair work at Zaporizhstal.
In general, in the first half of 2023, 2.83 million tons of steel were smelted in Ukraine, 37% less than in January-June 2022, which is quite understandable, considering that in January-February 2022 the Mariupol steel mills still were in operation (having produced a total of 1.355 million tons of steel), and Ukraine could freely export metal products through its Black Sea deep-sea ports.
Excluding the Mariupol plants, steel production in the first half of the year decreased by 10% compared to last year, but if we consider the March-June period, it increased by 90% in 2023.
In terms of main steel producers, the situation was as follows:
Producer
H1 2023
H2 2022
Change, %
Kametstal
1032
1057
-2.4%
Zaporizhstal
1018
923
10.3%
AMKR
390
890
-57.2%
Interpipe
343*
286
20%
Azovstal
-
683
-
MMK
-
672
-
TOTAL
2830
4530
-37.5%
The largest steel producer in Ukraine during the first half of 2023, as well as in 2022, was the Kametstal enterprise from Kamianske (which is part of the Metinvest group). Its production remained almost unchanged compared to the same period in 2022 and amounted to 1.032 million tons of steel.
Zaporizhstal even increased output by 10% compared to the previous year, smelting 1,018 million tons in January-June.
At ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the situation is much worse - during the first half of the year, the plant smelted 390,000 tons compared to last year's 890,000 tons. The plant operates only one blast furnace (pig iron production), so the steel output is limited as well. Power outages at the beginning of the year, as well as the aforementioned explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP, also had a significant impact on the operations of the largest Ukrainian metallurgical plant (before the full-scale invasion, it produced an average of about 5 million tons of steel per year).