Afarak’s result dropped well below freezing

Known for processing metal ores Afraq reported its results for the last half of the previous year on Friday.

In July–December, the company made an operating loss of 8.2 euros on a turnover of 64.2 million euros.

In the comparison period a year ago, the company made a loss of 3.2 million euros with a turnover of 57.2 million euros.

The company’s EBITDA in the second half of the year was -7.1 million euros, while it was a loss of 1.6 million in the comparison period.

Sales of processed special metal alloy materials increased by 32.7 percent in the first half of the year and amounted to 13,053 tons.

For the entire year 2025, the company made a turnover of 141.3 million euros, higher than the previous year. EBITDA was EUR 0.2 million in loss, while the previous year it was EUR 2.6 million in profit.

The company has no analyst monitoring at all, and therefore no profit forecasts.

Covers under pressure

In its outlook for the first quarter of the year, the company says that its customer base is suffering.

“The EU steel industry contracted in 2025 for the fourth year in a row after a short first quarter growth. The share of cheap imported steel in the EU is a record high 27%. In the case of stainless steel, the share is 25%,” the company sums up.

According to Afaraki, a moderate recovery is forecast for 2026, but there is expected to be a lot of uncertainty given the global steel production overcapacity of 680 million tonnes. Europe is at a disadvantage due to high energy costs and supply disruptions caused by the 50% US tariff introduced in mid-2025.

“Our margins are still under pressure.”

Although the market price of low carbon ferrochrome started to show a more permanent improvement in the last quarter of 2025, the depreciation of the US dollar has wiped out most of the positive effect. Low carbon ferrochrome is still a US dollar denominated commodity.

The company estimates that CBAM and the new EU safeguards have started to show some positive effects in early 2026, but energy costs and rising emissions trading costs will continue to weigh heavily on European producers.

“After the short and moderate growth of the first quarter, the business environment weakened again in 2025. The demand for stainless steel was historically low, especially in Europe. The demand for low-carbon ferrochrome suffered as a result,” says the CEO Guy Konsbruck in the results bulletin.

“We managed to increase our sales significantly, but the EBITDA of -0.2 million euros shows that the price pressure caused by cheap imports (India, Kazakhstan, Russia and China) weighed heavily on our margins. The drop in chrome ore prices and unexpected delays caused a lower-than-expected result in our South African chrome ore operations.”

In recent years, Afaraki has been overshadowed by, among other things, a complicated ownership pattern. Principal owner Danko Concar has previously been obliged to make a purchase offer for the entire company under the threat of a fine, and Finnish owners and foreign management have had plenty of disagreements.