In 1866, the government of the Russian Empire concluded an agreement with Prince Sergey Victorovich Kochubey, according to which the prince undertook to build a plant for the manufacture of iron rails in the south of the Russian Empire. In 1869, Kochubey sold the enterprise to John Hughes for £24,000.
In 1869, Hughes (or Yuz) began the construction of a metallurgical plant with a working settlement near the village of Aleksandrovka.
On April 24, 1871, the first blast furnace was built and on January 24, 1872, the plant of the Novorossiysk Society for Coal, Iron and Rail Production produced the first pig iron.
In the "Mining Journal" for 1889, the oldest plan of the NRO plant was published. In addition to the location of industrial facilities, this plan also shows the first, one-story house of John Hughes, built by the Hughes family in 1874. Now this place is located on the territory of a metallurgical plant, near the administrative building of the electric steel   smelting and swaging shops, next to the monument "In honor of the smelting of the 100 millionth ton of steel on December 24, 1967."
In 1901, a social-democratic circle was created at the plant. The factory workers took an active part in the First Russian Revolution of 1905.
The plant worked as a full metallurgical cycle. For the first time in the Russian Empire 8 coke ovens are launched. Hot blast is mastered. The plant became one of the industrial centers of the Russian Empire.
In 1908–1913, 1916–1917, the outstanding metallurgist Mikhail Konstantinovich Kurako worked at the plant.
In 1917, 25 thousand people worked at the plant, mines, and mines of the society.
On March 5 (18), 1917, the Council of Workers Deputies was created in Yuzovka, which included factory workers, after which an 8-hour working day was established at the enterprise . In the autumn of 1917, workers control was established at the enterprise, attempts by the plant administration to stop the enterprise were suppressed, coal mining and production continued. A detachment of factory workers was sent to fight Kaledin. The workers of the plant later on took an active part in the establishment of Soviet power in the Donbas.