Ukraine increased the export of pig iron by 8.5% m/m in November 2022

In November 2022, Ukrainian steel companies increased the export of pig iron by 8.3% compared to the previous month – up to 78.3 thousand tons. In monetary terms, pig iron deliveries abroad during this period increased by 20.3% m/m – up to $28.51 million. This is evidenced by the State Customs Service’s data.

In November 2022, year-on-year deliveries of pig iron abroad fell by 70.9% in physical terms and by 77.7% in monetary terms.

In January-November 2022, Ukraine exported 1.23 million tons of pig iron. This is 57.8% less compared to the same period in 2021. The revenue of steelmakers from the export of pig iron for 11 months of 2022 amounted to $602.7 million, which is 59.7% less than in January-November 2021.

The main consumer of Ukrainian pig iron in January-November 2022 was the USA (40.1%). The share of Poland in the total volume of pig iron exports was 34.17%. Turkiye is in the third place – 8.6%. Before the war, the USA consumed more than half of the pig iron exported from Ukraine.

In January-November 2022, steel enterprises of Ukraine reduced pig iron production by 68% compared to the same period last year – to 5.24 million tons. In November 2022, Ukrainian steelmakers produced 335 thousand tons of pig iron.

Production of iron and steel products in Ukraine in November 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.

The problem of the increase in the cost of production, as well as the logistics of production, has also become acute. In this regard, companies began to massively announce load reductions or shutdowns 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%).