Metinvest, an international vertically integrated steel and mining group of companies, within the frames of its long-term development strategy implementation has declared it will be investing on average USD 1 billion every year through 2020 in development of its Azovstal and Iliych iron and steel works.

The investments will allow increasing joint annual steel output at these steel plants by 35% to 16 million tonnes and reduce the amount of specific emissions 5 times down to 7 kilogram per tonne of crude steel.

Metinvest intends to invest around USD 8 billion in excess till 2020 into the reconstruction and modernization of its two integrated steel works in Mariupol Azovstal and Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol (Ilyich Steel) and increase the crude steel output by 35% to16 million tonnes. The adopted integrated approach to modernizing the production facilities is based on improving production efficiency with simultaneous reduction of negative effect on environment. The strategy envisages reduction of gross emissions by 3.5 times and specific emissions per tonne of steel by 5 times.

Mr Igor Syry CEO of Metinvest said that "We are determined to provide substantial reduction of negative exposure on environment while modernizing our facilities to improve production efficiency. This is how we are convinced any modernization shall be realized. Till 2020 we will have invested around USD 8 billion into such programs at these two plants alone, that means average annual expenditures of about USD 1 billion. The measures to be realized in 2012 will have reduced emissions by 10%."