Ukraine increased the export of pig iron by 38.6% m/m in January 2023

In January 2023, Ukrainian steel companies increased the export of pig iron by 38.6% compared to the previous month – up to 135.07 thousand tons. In monetary terms, pig iron deliveries during this period increased by 34.4% m/m – up to $48.51 million. This is evidenced by the State Customs Service’s data.

In January 2023, iron ore deliveries abroad fell by 29.6% in physical terms and by 47.4% in monetary terms year-on-year.

The main consumer of Ukrainian pig iron in January 2023 was Spain (38.1%). The share of Poland in the total volume of pig iron exports was 37.4%. In the third place is Italy – 21.1%. Before the war, the main consumer of Ukrainian pig iron was the USA.

In 2022, Ukrainian steel companies reduced the export of pig iron by 59% compared to 2021 – to 1.32 million tons. The revenue of steelmakers from the export of pig iron last year amounted to $638.8 million, which is 61.1% less than in 2021. The main consumer of pig iron was the USA – 38.47 of the total volume of exports.

Pig iron smelting in Ukraine in 2022 decreased by 69.8% compared to 2021 – to 6.39 million tons. In December 2022, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 247 thousand tons of pig iron.

The production of iron and steel products in Ukraine  decreased, in particular, due to the deterioration of the situation on the global market. Rising prices due to disruptions in supply chains allowed domestic exporters to partially offset losses from increased costs due to the war, but prices are now low due to a lack of demand on world markets.

The problems of rising production costs, production logistics, and energy supply, which is unstable due to constant shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure by the Russian Federation, are also acute. As a result, companies have massively reduced loading or temporarily shut down capacity due to accumulated problems.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2021, pig iron exports from Ukraine increased by 4% compared to 2020 – up to 3.24 million tons. In monetary terms, pig iron deliveries abroad in 2021 increased by 78.1% y/y – up to $1.64 billion.

In 2021, Ukraine sold more than half of its pig iron to the USA (53.6%). In 2021, Italy was in the second place by the volume of supplies of Ukrainian pig iron (22.1%), and Turkiye was in the third place (9.7%).