The inverse problem concerning electromagnetic casting of molten metals consists of looking for an electric current density distribution such that the induced electromagnetic field makes a given mass of liquid metal acquire a predefined shape. This problem is formulated here as an optimization problem where the positions of a finite set of inductors are the design variables. Two different formulations for this optimization problem for the two-dimensional case are proposed. The first one minimizes the difference between the target and the equilibrium shapes while the second approach minimizes the L 2 norm of a fictitious surface pressure that makes the target shape to be in mechanical equilibrium. The optimization problems are solved using Feasible Arc Interior Point Algorithm, a line search interior-point algorithm for nonlinear optimization. Some examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.