Russian pig iron output falls almost 6% in H1 2026 as Urals plants are urged to pivot to the domestic market

Pig iron output down almost 6 percent in the first half

Russia's ferrous metals industry ended the first half of 2026 in negative territory, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported. Pig iron smelting fell by almost 6 percent against the same period of the previous year, with steel output also lower. The decline is felt most acutely in the Urals, where ferrous metallurgy is historically a systemically important industry and where, the publication says, the sales problem now confronts the majority of plants.

The pressure is external as well as domestic. Denis Manturov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, said Russian metallurgy still holds one of the leading positions in the world and consistently ranks among the five largest producers of metal products. At the same time, he said, the global market is becoming more competitive, trade protectionism is intensifying, new restrictions are appearing and the geography of demand is changing. Further strengthening of domestic producers is therefore directly tied to output of high-technology products, higher production efficiency and the introduction of digital technologies. The shift from competing on volumes to competing on technology and quality, he said, is becoming the main condition for long-term success.

Stainless flat products: the largest substitution target

The clearest example of new domestic capacity is the complex being built in the Volgograd region by the Russian Stainless Company (RNK) for flat stainless rolled products made from corrosion-resistant, heat-resistant and heat-durable steels. Up to 75 percent of such products supplied to Russia today come from abroad. Stanislav Olkov, general director of RNK, said that bringing the rolling plant to full capacity would double consumption of Russian-produced ferrochrome, including from Urals enterprises such as the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant.

Another substitution project involves VSMPO-AVISMA, which has become the first company in the country to start producing large-size stamped steel billets for crankshafts used in high-power diesel engines for locomotives, ships and power installations.

Productivity up almost fourfold, but the equipment is imported

According to the Russian Steel association, the deep modernization under way since the early 2000s has raised productivity almost fourfold. Further gains are being secured through IT solutions, artificial intelligence, robotics and computer vision, which free personnel from routine and hazardous operations and improve product quality.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta lists the barriers on that path:

• insufficient pace of import substitution, for example in manufacturing control systems;
• continued import dependence, with 80 percent of robots used in Russia of foreign origin;
• a global lag in the pace of robotisation and in personnel readiness to work with the newest equipment.

There are breakthroughs as well. At the Innoprom-2026 industrial exhibition held in Yekaterinburg in July, Russian metallurgists presented their own open automated process control system, which they are prepared to share with peers and which would allow the industry to drop the restrictive terms attached to imported analogues.

From volumes to specialisation

Domestic cooperation is another development vector for metallurgy and for industry as a whole. Alexander Popov, general director of Metalloinvest, said he is satisfied with the company's cooperation with Uralmashzavod, which supplies metallurgists with both traditional and recently mastered import-substituting products. Standard business relations, according to Popov, are turning into synergy, with metallurgists passing their engineering experience and knowledge to machine builders.

Viktor Semenov, general director of the Bardin Central Research Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy (TsNIIchermet), sees the next vector in abandoning excess production, moving from internal competition to specialisation and launching new product types: small-section rolled steel for local needs, as well as metal powders, special steels, special alloys and precision alloys demanded by high-technology sectors such as machine building, nuclear power, aircraft engine building and space. Semenov called 2026 a turning-point year, saying the industry has begun to change its approach to doing business dynamically and that fundamental transformations are under way. In his view, a detailed profile of Russian metallurgy as both a customer for and a producer of innovative products should take shape within five years at the latest.