Kremikovtzi steel mill, the pride of Communist-era Bulgaria, was sold on August 27 1999 for $1, a deal that in later years gave critics of then-Prime Minister Ivan Kostov plenty of ammunition for their attacks. A detail that is often forgotten, however, is that the buyer of the 71 per cent stake, locally-owned Daru Metals, also agreed to pay Kremikovtzi's 645 million leva debt and vowed to invest $300 million over six years in production lines.

To ease the transition, Bulgaria's government gave about 390 million in state aid and agreed to restructure repayment of the debts owed to state-owned companies.

In 2005, Valentin Zahariev, the majority shareholder in Daru Metals, at this point renamed as Finmetals Holding, sold Finmetals to Global Steel Holding, controlled by Indian tycoon Pramod Mittal. The details were never made public, but with Kremikovtzi slowly starting to pay back the debt after rising global commodity prices put the steelworks in the black, optimism was high that the new owners will clear the debt and invest heavily in environmental upgrades.

Global Steel Holding issued a 325 million euro bond, with the proceeds meant to pay off the most pressing debts and the necessary upgrades, but it later emerged that the money was mostly used to fund the acquisition of Kremikovtzi. No major environmental investment followed.

By summer 2008, Kremikovtzi's debt soared to 2.2 billion leva and the bonds became callable. The global economic downturn put potential investors off and several production lines, including two blast furnaces and the coke ovens, had to be shut down, while a Bulgarian court began bankruptcy proceedings against Kremikovtzi.

In May 2009, Bulgaria cut off gas supplies to Kremikovtzi, leaving only the arc furnace working. About 1900 employees out of an estimated payroll of 4500 were scheduled to be made redundant.

On August 25, Bulgaria's Economy Minister Traicho Traikovski said it would be risky for the government to endorse a recovery plan, because if it failed, the state would end up being owed even more than the one billion leva it is owed now. While it was hardly an unequivocal endorsement of liquidation, the days of the steel mill that in its heyday accounted for two per cent of Bulgaria's gross domestic product and five per cent of its exports appear to be numbered.