Ukrainian steel companies shipped 27,800 tons of pig iron to foreign customers in August 2023, a 74% decrease compared with July.
The GMK Center reported this, citing data from the State Customs Service, the CFTS portal reports.
Pig iron exports by volume decreased by 72.3% and its exports by value decreased by 81.8% in August 2023, compared with August 2022.
According to the report, pig iron exports in August fell to the lowest level since April 2022, when iron and steel companies almost completely stopped production because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine exported 934,200 tons of pig iron worth USD 356.3 million in January-August 2023, when export volumes increased by 6.5% while revenue decreased by 25.1% compared with the same period in 2022.
Poland is the largest importer of Ukrainian pig iron in 2023 (63.1%), followed by Spain (20.7%) and the Czech Republic (7%).
Before the outbreak of the full-scale war, more than half of the pig iron exported from Ukraine went to the United States.
It should be noted that against the backdrop of the war-related restrictions on Ukrainian exports of mining and metal products, similar products continue to be imported from Russia into the European Union. The European Union imported 2.92 million tons of mining and metal products from Russia in January-June this year. Semi-finished steel products accounted for the bulk of these imports, accounting for 62.1% of the total supply of metallurgical raw materials (iron ore, cast iron, ferroalloys, semi-finished products, and scrap metal).
