Steel production in Ukraine plummeted by 27% in April

In April, Ukrainian steelmakers cut steel production by 27% to 1.41 million tons against last April (19.9% against March 2020),

according to the preliminary statistics of Ukrmetallurgprom.

Production of pig iron declined by 23.1% to 1.412 million tons, and rolled products by 22.9% to 1.26 million tons in April 2020 against April 2019. Inn March 2020, production of pig iron and rolled products fell by 18.9% and 14.7% respectively against March last year.

According to the results of January-April, all industry’s indicators plummeted compared to the same period of the previous year:

• steel — 6.73 million tons (-9.6%);
• pig iron — 6.51 million tons (-7.6%);
• rolled products — 5.89 million tons (-4.8%).

Earlier, GMK Center Chief Analyst, Andrii Tarasenko, forecasted that Ukraine’s mining & metals companies will reduce monthly production of steel in April–May by 25% to 1.4 million tons compared to the same period of the previous year.

It has to be noted that in Q1, production of steel declined by 3.4% to 5.32 million tons and production of pig iron by 2.2% in to 5.10 million tons. Production of rolled products grew by 1.8% to 4.6 million tons in January–March.

At the same time, Ukrainian mining & metals companies increased production of iron ore concentrate by 3.2% to 16.1 million tons, but decreased production of:

• sinter ore — by 0.4% to 7.86 million tons;
• iron ore pellets — by 6.7% to 5.09 million tons;
• coke — by 6.5% to 2.44 million tons;
• pipes — by 25.4% to 211.7 thousand tons.

As reported earlier, in 2019, Ukrainian mining & metals companies cut steel production by 1.2% to 20.85 million tons. Production of pig iron fell by 2% to 20.6 million tons, and rolled products by 0.9% to 18.2 million tons against 2018.