Ukraine completely exhausted the quota for exports of stainless pipes to the EU

Ukraine’s steelmaking companies have almost exhausted the country quota for exports of seamless pipes of stainless steel to the European Union (group 22) granted for a year, from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020,

according to the monitoring data provided by Ukrmetallurgprom.

Ukrainian steelmakers have already exported 13.2 thousand tons of stainless steel pipes to the EU and thus filled the country quota.

Now when the country quota is exhausted, Ukrainian companies can export pipes to the EU under the global quota (on a ‘first come, first served’ basis).

Ukraine’s country quota for exports of non-alloy wire to the EU (group 28) is 97.02% exhausted as of 27 April. Ukrainian companies exported 65.5 thousand tons of non-alloy wire out of 67.5 thousand tons of the quota portion.

The quota for exports of hollow sections to the EU (group 21) is 94.80% exhausted. Ukrainian companies exported 60.4 thousand tons of hollow sections out of 63.7 thousand tons of the quota portion.

For the remaining product groups, two-thirds of the quota portion were exported on average. For instance, the country quota for plates (group 7) is 82.23% exhausted. Ukrainian companies exported to the EU 704.8 thousand tons out of 857.06 thousand tons of the quota portion. The quota for cold-rolled flat products is 77.61% exhausted, as 200.4 thousand tons out of the quota portion of 258.18 thousand tons were exported.

The largest Ukrainian manufacturer of seamless pipes of stainless steel is Centravis Production Ukraine (Centravis). The Company produces more than 1,000 pipe sizes of more than 100 types of corrosion-resistant and heat-resistant steel grades.

In 2019, Centravis increased production of stainless pipes by 5.5% to 21.1 thousand tons against the past year.

As reported earlier, the difference between country and global quotas is that the former can be exhausted before the end of its validity period, with no rush and fear that other countries will be quicker. Yet unused quantities may not be carried over to the following year.