Ukraine increased the export of pig iron by 24.4% m/m in December 2022

In December 2022, Ukrainian steel companies increased the export of pig iron by 24.4% compared to the previous month – to 97.45 thousand tons. In monetary terms, pig iron deliveries abroad during this period increased by 26.6% m/m – up to $36.08 million. This is evidenced by the State Customs Service’s data.

In December 2022, exports of pig iron fell by 69.8% in physical terms and by 75.7% in monetary terms year-on-year.

In 2022, Ukraine exported 1.32 million tons of pig iron. This is 59% less than in 2021. The revenue of steelmakers from the export of pig iron last year amounted to $638.8 million, which is 61.1% less than in 2021.

The main consumer of Ukrainian pig iron in 2022 was the USA (38.47%). The share of Poland in pig iron exports was 32.91%. Turkiye is in the third place with 8.12%. Before the war, the USA consumed more than half of the pig iron exported from Ukraine.

In 2022, steel enterprises of Ukraine reduced iron production by 69.8% compared to 2021 – to 6.39 million tons. In December 2022, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 247 thousand tons of pig iron.

The production of iron and steel products in Ukraine in December 2022 decreased, in particular, due to the deterioration of the situation on the global market. Rising prices due to disruptions in supply chains allowed domestic exporters to partially offset losses from increased costs due to the war, but prices are now low due to a lack of demand on world markets.

The problems of rising production costs, production logistics, and energy supply, which is unstable due to constant shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure by the Russian Federation, are also acute. As a result, companies have massively reduced loading or temporarily shut down capacity due to accumulated problems.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2021, pig iron exports from Ukraine increased by 4% compared to 2020 – up to 3.24 million tons. In monetary terms, pig iron deliveries abroad in 2021 increased by 78.1% y/y – up to $1.64 billion.

In 2021, Ukraine sold more than half of its pig iron to the USA (53.6%). In 2021, Italy was in the second place by the volume of supplies of Ukrainian pig iron (22.1%), and Turkiye was in the third place (9.7%).