The rolled steel market in Ukraine grew by 85.7% y/y in January-September

The capacity of the domestic market for 9 months was 2.62 million tons

In January-September 2023, Ukrainian enterprises increased the consumption of rolled steel by 85.7% compared to the same period in 2022 – up to 2.623 million tons. This is evidenced by GMK Center calculations based on the database of the State Customs Service and Ukrmetallurgprom.

For 9 months, 791.33 thousand tons of rolled steel was imported into Ukraine, which is 30.2% of the domestic market of its consumption. The share of the imported component in the domestic consumption of steel products increased by 2.4 percentage points y/y.

The import structure is characterized by a significant dominance of flat rolled products over graded products – 83.54% and 16.45%, respectively. In the same period of 2022, the dominance of flat rolled products over graded products was slightly lower, but also noticeable – 72.1% and 26.51%, respectively.

In general, in January-September 2023, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 3.93 million tons of rolled steel (-17% y/y). 2.096 million tons of products were shipped for export, and 1.83 million tons were shipped to the domestic market. The share of exports in the total volume of produced products was 53.4%, while for the same period in 2022 it was 78.4%.

The share of semi-finished products in export deliveries for 9 months is 44.1%, which corresponds to the indicator of 2022 (44.9%). The specific weight of flat rolled products in export deliveries for 9 months decreased to 37.5% against 39.7% a year earlier. The share of rolled products in export deliveries increased to 18.4% from 15.4%.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in September 2023 Ukrainian steelmakers increased the production of rolled products by 3.4% compared to the previous month – up to 523 thousand tons. Pig iron smelting in September 2023 decreased by 9% compared to August 2023 – up to 486 thousand tons. Steel production for the month was 558 thousand tons, which is 7.3% less month-on-month.