The Ferrexpo plc mining company with its main assets in Ukraine produced 2 million 169,631 thousand tons of pellets in January-June of this year, which is 34.2% lower than in January-June of last year (3 million 297,441 thousand tons).
According to the company's press release on Monday, the total production of marketable products (pellets and iron ore concentrate) for the first half of 2025 decreased by 9% compared to the first half of 2024 to 3 million 393,135 thousand tons. In particular, the output of commercial concentrate amounted to 1 million 223,504 thousand tons against 429,865 thousand tons, respectively. The company also produced 81.787 thousand tons of DR pellets (162.645 thousand tons in the first half of 2024), 2 million 87.844 thousand tons of premium pellets (a decrease of 33.4%).
The press release notes that from January to April 2025, the amount of VAT refunds is $31 million. Due to the current suspension of VAT refunds and the associated reduction in financial liquidity, the group was forced to reduce production from two to one processing line, as well as reduce production of high-quality concentrate. As a result, the total commercial production for the second quarter was 1.3 million tons, which is 40% less than the 2.1 million tons achieved in the first quarter.
Nevertheless, the group has demonstrated flexibility and agility by continuing to enjoy strong demand for its concentrate from customers in China, which accounted for more than a third of its product range in the first two quarters of 2025, it said.
By the way, she has made efforts to reduce her expenses in order to remain financially viable. This includes reducing employees' working hours, reducing purchases of goods and services, and suspending all non-essential capital expenditures, overhead costs, and corporate social responsibility expenses.
Commenting on the group's results, Interim Chairman Lucio Genovese stated that the strong momentum at the beginning of the year, which takes into account, in particular, increased quarterly production since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, was significantly limited in the second quarter as the company began to feel the impact of tax authorities' decisions to suspend refunds. VAT. Because of this, production decreased to 1.3 million tons in the second quarter of 2025.
"Despite the weaker iron ore pellet market, we have managed to significantly transform our production portfolio and take advantage of strong demand in China for our high-quality low-alumina iron ore concentrates. During the first six months of 2025, concentrate sales accounted for 36% of our production portfolio, which is three times more than in the same period a year ago. In difficult operating conditions and on the
