In 2Q 2022 USA decreased pig iron imports from Russia by 91.9% y/y

According to UN Comtrade data, in the first half of 2022 USA imported 638 thousand tons of pig iron (-30% y/y), 264 thousand tons of steel semi-finished products (-55% y/y), 79 thousand tons of flat products (66 times higher than in 1H 2021) from Russia.

Growth in imports of Russian flat products in the first half of the year is due to high volumes of supplies in the 1st quarter. In the 2nd quarter of 2022 imports of Russian flat products to USA decreased by 96.3% y-o-y. In May 2022 USA stopped imports of steel flat products from Russia.

After the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war pig iron imports from Russia also decreased: in the 1^st quarter USA imported 590 thousand tons, while in the 2^nd quarter – only 48 thousand tons. In the 2^nd quarter pig iron imports from Russia decreased by 91.9% annually.

In the 2^nd quarter of 2022 USA also imported 164 thousand tons of steel semis from Russia. It is bigger than in previous quarter (100 thousand tons), but significantly less than year ago (351 thousand tons).

Due to Russia invasion of Ukraine USA imposed sanctions on some owners of Russian steel companies. Personal sanctions were applied to Aleksey Mordashov (Severstal), Alisher Usmanov (Metalloinvest), Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy (TMK), Viktor Rashnikov (Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works). Also, USA banned entry of ships under the Russian flag into local ports.