Ukrainian steelmakers exported 143,000 tons of pig iron in July

In July 2022, Ukrainian steel companies reduced pig iron exports by 58.3% compared to the same month in 2021 – to 143.2 thousand tons. In monetary terms, pig iron exports abroad decreased by 56.5% – to $88.2 million. This is evidenced by the data of State Customs Service.

In January-July, Ukraine reduced the pig iron export by 57.3% compared to the same period in 2021 – to 777.2 thousand tons. The revenue of steelmakers from pig iron exports amounted to $423.8 million, which is 54.2% less than in January-July 2021.

The main consumer of Ukrainian pig iron is the USA (39%). The share of Poland in the total pig iron exports from Ukraine for January-July was 33.8%. Turkey is in the third place – 10.3%. Before the war, the USA consumed more than half of the Ukrainian pig iron.

In January-July 2022, steelmaking enterprises of Ukraine reduced pig iron production by 61.9% compared to January-July 2021 – to 4.81 million tons. In July 2022, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 277,000 tons of pig iron.

One of the biggest problems of the iron&steel industry was the global market deterioration. Rising prices driven by disruptions in supply chains allowed domestic exporters to offset some of the losses associated with increased spending due to the war. However, by mid-July, prices for rolled products and raw materials were already below pre-war levels.

The problems of the increase in the cost of production, as well as the logistics of production, have also become acute. Because of it, companies began to massively announce load reductions or shutdowns due to accumulated problems that the authorities are in no hurry to solve together with business.

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 exports abroad increased by 78.1% – up to $1.64 billion.

In 2021, Ukraine sold more than half of its pig iron to the USA (53.6%). Italy is in second place in terms of supply volumes (22.1%), Turkey is in third place (9.7%).