The European Union (EU) cut its imports of steel and iron products from Russia in January 2024 to 239.89 thousand tonnes, a 38.9% decrease from January 2023. There was a 42.1% decrease in the figure from the previous month. The Eurostat data supports this.
At €114.03 million, the cost of importing Russian steel and iron products in January 2023 dropped by 43.6% and by 38.4% m/m.
Semi-finished goods made up 78.5% of all imports, which was the majority of the total. The EU imported 188.4 thousand tonnes of the relevant goods from Russia during the month. A decrease of 27.2% year over year and 34.0% month over month. The majority of semi-finished product imports, totaling 68.74 thousand tonnes (-36.5% y/y), came from Belgium.
9.36 kt of iron ore was supplied by Russia to the EU, a 19.7% m/m and 71.7% y/y decrease. Slovakia received the full volume of raw materials shipped (-71.7% y/y). 4.22 thousand tonnes (-29.6% y/y, +74% m/m) of ferroalloys, 36.34 thousand tonnes (-61.6% y/y, -67.9% m/m). And 1.6 thousand tonnes (+308.2% y/y, -50.6% m/m) of scrap were imported.
THE MAIN CONSUMERS OF THESE RUSSIAN IRON AND STEEL PRODUCTS IN JANUARY WERE:
- pig iron – Latvia – 18.1 thousand tons (not imported in January 2023);
- ferroalloys – the Netherlands – 3.33 thousand tons (+68.3% y/y);
- scrap – Lithuania – 1.42 thousand tons (not imported in January 2023).
The Russian steel and iron industry continues to turn a healthy profit from exporting goods to the European Union, even in the face of sanctions. Supplies are still high even though exports last year totaled 7.92 million tonnes, valued at €3.87 billion—a significant decrease from 2022.
The EU extended Russian slab quotas for an additional four years in the 12th package. The overall quota for imports of this good from October 2024 to September 2028 is 8.5 million tonnes, with a more detailed breakdown by time period. As a component of the eighth sanctions package, the prior restrictions on the import of slabs were put in place in October of last year.
At that point, it was decided that imports would stop on October 1, 2024. And that they could continue until the end of September 2024 within the set quotas. The previous limitations were actually loosened by the 12th package of sanctions.