Ukraine cut production of rolled steel products by 3.4% in January–April

In January–April 2020, Ukrainian steelmaking companies decreased production of rolled steel products by 3.4% to 5.97 million tons compared to the same period of the previous year,

according to Ukrmetallurgprom based on its own data and information from ETR-Spektr LLC.

The export share in sales of rolled products totaled 84.5% or 5.05 million tons, 1.9 percentage points down from January–April 2019.

The share of semi-finished products in the total volume of Ukraine’s foreign trade reached 50.80% over the four months of 2020, 6.16 percentage points up from January–April 2019.

The share of flat products in exports in January–April was considerably lower compared to the first four months of 2019 (32.10% and 35.30% respectively), so was the share of long products (17.10% and 20.06% respectively).

Domestic consumption amounted to 1.27 million tons of rolled products, of which the share of imports was 26.9% or 341.1 thousand tons. The share of imports was 6 percentage points down from January–April last year.

The share of imports of long products increased and exceeded that of flat products, 50.39% against 47.52%.

The main sales markets for Ukrainian metal products in January–April 2020 were:

• EU countries (31.0%);
• other European countries (14.5%);
• Africa (13.2%).

Sources of Ukraine’s imports were:

• CIS (44.6%);
• EU (25.2%);
• other European countries (14.9%).

In 2019, Ukrainian steelmaking companies reduced production of rolled steel products by 0.9% to 18.20 million tons against the past year. The export share in sales of rolled products totaled 81.2% or 14.94 million tons.