Turkey quadruples imports of pig iron from Ukraine in January-May

In January-May 2025, Turkey increased imports of commercial pig iron from Ukraine by 4.4 times compared to the same period in 2024 – up to 44.16 thousand tonnes. At the same time, the entire volume of products was delivered in May, while no imports were made in January-April. This is reported by SteelOrbis with reference to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK).

In total, Turkish consumers imported 933.5 thousand tonnes of pig iron during the period, which is 40% more than in January-May 2024. Procurement costs increased by 18.9% y/y – to $342.5 million.

In May, imports totalled 233.9 thsd tonnes, down 7.6% compared to April and 107.6% more than in April. In value terms, deliveries decreased by 5.2% month-on-month and increased by 342.5% y/y – to $86.85 million.

Russia is the key supplier of products – 672.57 thousand tonnes in January-May (+40.6% y/y), and 166.49 thousand tonnes in May (+127% y/y). Kazakhstan supplied 107.57 kt of pig iron to Turkey over 5 months (+88.4% y/y) and 23.24 kt in May (+20.5% y/y). Deliveries from Germany totalled 56 kt (+125.5% y/y), and from Indonesia – 47.1 kt (0 kt), while both countries did not ship products in May.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2024, Turkey reduced its imports of pig iron from Ukraine by 6.3% compared to 2023, from 109.29 thousand tonnes to 102.43 thousand tonnes. In total, Turkey imported 1.42 million tonnes of pig iron during the year, up 3.3% compared to 2023. Import costs decreased by 0.7% y/y – to $602.08 million tonnes.