Novostal-M raising foreign currency loans in CIS countries due to lack of offers from Russian banks

ST. PETERSBURG. June 5 (Interfax) - Novostal-M, whose main assets are the Abinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and the Balakovo Metallurgical Plant, has started raising foreign currency loans in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) amid the absence of similar offers from Russian banks.

"Today we are quite successfully finding CIS countries that are ready to offer foreign currency loans. Something our banks are not ready to offer," the company's beneficiary Ivan Demchenko said at a session held as part of the 2026 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2026). "We now borrow from different countries - Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia," he said.

Commenting on the situation in the metallurgical industry, Demchenko said that amid low demand, most companies in the sector are today directing investments toward modernizing their own capacities and the green agenda.

The company itself is completing a large investment project to build a new rail and beam production facility with a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. It plans to launch rolling production in 2027. Previously, the target for starting rolling output was the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026.

"As for new investments in metallurgy, the creation of new capacities - that is no longer possible today," he said. "All the projects that were on the horizon of various investors - in the Novgorod region, the Rostov region, the Irkutsk region - all disappeared overnight as soon as the situation with interest rates and the ruble exchange rate began to become more complicated," he said.

Demchenko also said that the electric steelmaking industry "has come to understand that there will be no support regarding the excise tax on steel [introduced in 2022]."