Zaporizhstal

The Zaporizhstal Iron and Steel Works (Ukrainian: Запорізький металургійний комбінат «Запоріжсталь») is Ukraine's fourth-largest steel maker with an annual capacity of 4.5 million tonnes of steel, 3.3 million tonnes of pig iron, and 4.1 million of finished steel products, and ranks 54th in the world. The company is Ukraine's only manufacturer of cold-rolled sheets, used in car manufacturing, as well as tinplates and polished stainless and alloyed steel. Zaporizhstal is located in the city of Zaporizhzhia, in a region with the highest per capita electricity output in Ukraine, close to raw material suppliers and steel consumers (pipe and machine building companies). The company was founded in 1933.

Zaporizhstal

The company's headquarters in Zaporizhzhia
Company type	PJSC
ISIN	UA4000071435
Industry	Ferrous metallurgy
Founded	1933
Headquarters	Zaporizhzhia , Ukraine
Key people	Oleksandr Myronenko (CEO)[1]
Products	Cast iron, steel, cold-rolled sheets
Number of employees	8,569 (2023)
Parent	Metinvest
Website	www.zaporizhstal.com

This steel mill is notable as it still produces steel (as of 2024) using the old-fashioned open hearth furnaces - which due to their slow operation became obsolete on industrial scales in the 1970s.^[2] The mill has four blast furnaces, seven open hearth furnaces and one twin hearth furnace.^[3]

Ownership

The 1958 post stamp "Pioneers of the Soviet Industry"

After the collapse of the USSR and the independence of Ukraine, the mill fell into the hands of the Ukrainian government. When privatization began in the mid-1990s, Vasily Khmelnytsky, an ambitious politician-turned-businessman, was named manager of the state's stake in the plant, and subsequently engineered the insider sale of many shares of the plant to his own investment company.^[4]

The Ukrainian government began offering shares in Zaporizhstal in cash auctions in 1999. By 2001, Vasyl Khmelnytsky and a consortium led by the Midland Group controlled 93% of the mill.^[4] According to court documents, the Midland Group sold its 50% stake in 2009 to then-independent investment bank Troika Dialog following a bidding war that included other Zaporizhstal shareholders.^[5] However, The Wall Street Journal reports that the mill was sold in an offshore transaction that included five separate companies and was financed by Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank.^[6][7] It's unclear how this reporting relates to the UK court record of the sale to Troika.

A Ukrainian holding company, Metinvest, eventually became full owners of the mill in 2013.^[8]

Production

One of seven 500-ton capacity open hearth furnaces at the steel plant, pictured in 2012

In 2003, the company produced 4,355,000 tonnes of raw steel (market share of 12%) and 3,625 ths. tonnes of finished steel products (11% share). Exports, delivered to 59 countries, accounted for 70% of Zaporizhstal's 2003 sales, with China, Middle Eastern states and the CIS among the main destinations. In 2015, the company has made 3.81 million tonnes of cast iron, 3.98 million tonnes of steel, 3.35 million tonnes of rolled steel.

Directors

• 1934—1937 — Isak Rohachevskyi
• 1937—1948 — Anatoliy Kuzmin
• 1948—1956 — Anastas Boborykin
• 1956—1982 — Lev Yupko
• 1982—1986 — Oleksandr Herasymenko
• 1986—2012 — Vitaliy Satskyi
• 2012—2019 — Rostyslav Shurma
• from 2019 — Oleksandr Myronenko^[9]

Awards

• Order of Lenin
• Order of the October Revolution

See also

• Zaporizhzhia Foundry and Mechanical Plant