Ferrexpo plc is a Swiss-based commodity trading and mining company which is the third largest exporter of iron ore pellets in the world. Ferrexpo's operating base is in central

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, where it operates three iron-ore mines and an iron ore pellet production facility. The company's trading office is located in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where it is listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

and it is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index and

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History

The business was founded by the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

government in 1960 as the " Poltava Mining and Extraction Combinat" to exploit iron ore reserves in

Horishni Plavni Horishni Plavni ( uk, Горі́шні Пла́вні, ; before 2016 known as Komsomolsk-na-Dnipri, uk, Комсомо́льськ-на-Дніпрі or simply Komsomolsk, uk, Комсомо́льськ) is a purpose-built mining city in cent ...

(formerly Komsomolsk),

. In 1977 it started selling its product in the form of iron ore pellets. In June 2007, Ferrexpo plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange, producing 8.6 million tonnes of iron ore pellets in the year prior to listing. In 2008 and 2009 the company established additional new complexes around

and

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; uk, Кременчу́к, Kremenchuk ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnipro River. The city serves as the administrative center of the Kremenchuk Raion (district) in Poltava Oblast (pr ...

. In 2011, the Company opened its second iron ore mine, the Yeristovo mine, which is located immediately north of the Company's main iron ore mine - the Poltava iron ore mine. Upon opening Yeristovo, Ferrexpo became the first company to open a new mine in Ukraine since the country's independence. Ferrexpo pellets

In March 2019 the company delayed publication of its results pending an investigation into charitable donations in

. In April 2019 its auditors

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professio ...

resigned, with Ferrexpo's former chief financial officer selling £400,000 of shares the day before the announcement. In August 2019 Ferrexpo announced that the charitable donations may have been misappropriated; it had donated $24 million to the charity in 2017 and $9.5 million in 2018. In October 2019, the CEO, Kostyantyn Zhevago, stood down from his post, following allegations of the embezzlement of $113 million from the Finance & Credit Bank. Following Zhevago's departure, Jim North became acting CEO; the company announced his appointment as permanent CEO in February 2022.

Operations

Ferrexpo produces iron ore pellets, which are used in the global steel industry to produce high quality types of steel. Iron ore pellets are the highest quality form of iron ore that steel producers can utilise, offering steel producers the opportunity to improve blast furnace productivity, whilst simultaneously reducing carbon emissions by at least 30% for every tonne of pellets used instead of the more commonly used sinter fines, which are typically lower grade and require sintering prior to charging into the blast furnace. The Company, which sells most of its product to steel mills of

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, is organised into the following units: *

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

* Switzerland - home base *

- registered office, trading *

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

- distribution and sale *

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

- distribution and sale *

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

- distribution and sale *

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

- distribution and sale The company's mining components are all based in central Ukraine and consist of: * Poltava Mining and Enrichment Complex (1970s),

* Yeristovo Mining and Enrichment Complex (2008), Yerystivka village, Kremenchuk Raion (see: Yeristovskoye mine) * Belanovo Mining and Enrichment Complex (est. 2009, under construction), Bazaluky village, Horishni Plavni municipality and Nova Haleshchyna, Kozelshchyna Raion (see: Belanovskoye mine) Additionally, the company owns several nearby iron deposits which are not yet being actively exploited. From north to south, these are: * Brovarkovskoye mine * Manuilovskoye mine * Kharchenkovskoye mine * Vasilievskoye mine * Zarudenskoye mine

Ownership

The founder,

Kostyantyn Zhevago Kostyantyn Valentynovych Zhevago ( uk, Костянтин Валентинович Жеваго, russian: Константин Валентинович Жеваго; born 7 January 1974) is a Ukrainian billionaire and politician. He was the fi ...

, owns 50.3% of the company. Kostyantyn Zhevago was arrested in December 2022 under an international arrest warrant, he is wanted in Ukraine in a major embezzlement case.

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Non-renewable resource companies established in 1960 Iron ore mining companies Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Economy of Poltava Oblast Metal companies of Switzerland Mining in Ukraine 1960 establishments in Ukraine