Ukraine's rolled steel market nearly doubles in Jan-Oct - association

MOSCOW. Nov 17 (Interfax) - Ukrainian companies increased consumption of rolled steel by 90% year-on-year to 2.904 million tonnes in the first ten months of 2023, Ukrainian media reported, citing industry association Ukrmetalurgprom.

Imports totaled 937,500 tonnes in the ten months and accounted for 32.3% for domestic steel product consumption.

Ukrainian steelmakers produced 4.37 million tonnes of rolled products in the ten months, 13% less than a year earlier, Ukrmetalurgprom reported. They exported about 2.4 million tonnes, or 55.9%, data from the Expert-Scientific Council of UAVtormet showed. In the same period of 2022, steelmakers exported 79.7% or 4 million tonnes of the 5.02 million tonnes of rolled products they produced.

Semi-products made up 43.1% of exports in the ten months, flat products accounted for 37% and long products made up 19.8%, compared to, respectively, 44.3%, 37.3% and 19.4% a year earlier.

Imports continued to be primarily dominated by flat products, which accounted for 75.5% of the total in the ten months, up from 66.2% a year earlier. The share of long products shrank to 24.4% from 32.7%.

Ukrainian steelmakers' main export market was the European Union, which accounted for 84.1% of total exports, UAVtormet data showed. Other European countries accounted for 7.3%.

Ukraine imported 38.2% of steel products from EU countries, 39.9% from other European countries and 19.7% from Asia.