Ukraine increased imports of flat rolled products by 48.3% m/m in February

In February 2023, Ukraine increased the import of flat rolled steel by 48.3% compared to January 2023 – up to 60.67 thousand tons. Import costs in February increased by 37.7% m/m – up to $69.8 million. This is evidenced by State Customs Service’s data.

Compared to February 2022, in February 2023 Ukraine increased the costs of importing flat rolled products by 14.1%. It is impossible to calculate the difference in the volume of imports in natural volume due to the lack of data.

In January-February 2023, Ukraine consumed 101.6 thousand tons of imported flat rolled steel worth $120.5 million. The costs of importing foreign products decreased by 3% compared to the same period last year.

In January-February 2023, Ukraine imported the most coated flat rolled products with a width of 600 mm and more (Nomenclature – 7210) – 50 thousand tons for $62.1 million. In February, the import of such products increased by 3.2% m/m – up to 25.4 thousand tons, and purchase costs amounted to $32.3 million (+8.5% m/m and -18.5% y/y).

Also, 31.93 thousand tons of hot-rolled uncoated flat products with a width of 600 mm and more (Nomenclature – 7208) were imported for $27.2 million, and in February – 21.3 thousand tons (+2 times m/m) for $18.2 million (+2.02 times m/m and +6.3 times y/y).

In the top three among the types of flat rolled products in terms of import volume to Ukraine in January-February 2023 – cold-rolled flat products made of carbon steel without a coating with a width of 600 mm and more (Nomenclature – 7209) – 9.8 thousand tons for $8.7 million. In February, deliveries of such products to Ukraine increased by 7.1 times compared to the previous month – up to 8.56 thousand tons, and in monetary terms – by 6.2 times m/m and 2.8 times y/y – up to $7.53 million.

China, Poland and Turkiye were the largest suppliers of coated flat rolled products with a width of 600 mm and more in January-February 2023 – 24.58%, 23.5% and 17.04%, respectively, in monetary terms. Turkiye (26.31%), Slovakia (20.19%) and Romania (17.46%) shipped more than 60% of uncoated hot-rolled flat products with a width of 600 mm and more. Turkiye (55.5%) was the main supplier of uncoated cold-rolled flat products in January-February 2023.

As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several steel enterprises remained in the temporarily occupied territory, including the largest steel plants Azovstal and Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. Enterprises located in the territory under control are operating at minimum capacity due to problems with logistics, the unfavorable situation on the global steel markets, and interruptions in energy supply due to the shelling of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure by Russian forces, but now the situation has stabilized.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2022, Ukraine reduced imports of flat rolled steel by 32.8% compared to 2021 – to 472.01 thousand tons. Import costs for the year decreased by 24.1% y/y – to $698.83 million. The largest suppliers of products were Turkiye, Poland, Slovakia and China.

In January-February 2023, Ukrainian steelmakers exported 64.46 thousand tons of flat rolled products by $43.03 million. That is, the import of flat rolled products exceeds the export of such products by Ukrainian producers by 37.1 thousand tons.