Canadian Black Iron plans to start minimal work in Ukraine to avoid losing its license

Canadian mining company Black Iron is ready to start work at the Shymanivske iron ore deposit in Dnipropetrovs'k region to retain its license. Pavlo Komaritsky, CEO of Shymanivske Steel, said this in an article LIGA.net .

In 2023, Law 2805-IX came into force to combat "dormant licenses" – when companies have production permits but do nothing with them. The law requires that within six months after the end of martial law, the company must produce at least 1% of the raw materials from the field, otherwise the license is canceled.

Black Iron acquired the license for the Shymanivske deposit from Victor Pinchuk back in 2010 for $13 million, but has not yet started production due to lengthy bureaucratic procedures for obtaining land plots.

In early 2025, the Canadian company received 248 hectares of land in Kryvyi Rih, which allows it to perform the minimum amount of work to comply with the law, Komaritsky said. According to him, the extraction of even 1% of raw materials requires hundreds of millions of hryvnias. He claims that these costs will not lead to significant added value.

"At the same time, we are ready to act in such a way as to ensure the further development of the project. We are aware of this condition and are preparing the necessary amount of work," Komaritsky says .

• In 2010, the Canadian company Black Iron acquired the Cypriot company GeoAlliance Ore East with a license to develop the Shymanivske iron ore deposit.
• On March 30, 2017, Black Iron's subsidiary Shymanivske Steel LLC received permission from the Kryvyi Rih City Council to prepare a land allocation plan for the construction of an iron ore plant.
• Canadians agreed to invest in the project with Cargill Incorporated, which is to invest $75 million in exchange for the right to purchase the first 4 million tons of iron ore.