Steel consumption in Ukraine at the beginning of 2021 increased by 8% YoY
In January-April 2021, the consumption of metal products in the domestic market of Ukraine amounted to 1 million 363.7 thousand tons, of which 288.7 thousand tons, or 21.17%, was covered by imports. This was reported by the Ukrmetallurgprom Association of Enterprises.
The association explained that in January-April 2020, the capacity of the domestic market amounted to 1 million 265.1 thousand tons, of which 341.1 thousand tons, or 26.29% were imported. Thus, for 4 months of 2021, there is an increase in the capacity of the domestic market of Ukraine relative to January-April 2020 by 7.79%, while the share of the import component has decreased by 5.79%.
According to the association, in January-April 2021, Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises produced 6.39 million tons of rolled metal (107.02% compared to January-April 2020), of which about 5.32 million tons, or 83, were exported, 2%. For 4 months of 2020, the share of exports amounted to 84.5% (5.05 million tons with a total production of 5.97 million tons of rolled metal).
The share of semi-finished products in export deliveries for 4 months of 2021 accounted for 48.47%, which is slightly lower than the indicator for the same period in 2020 (50.80%). The share of flat products in export deliveries in January-April 2021 is noticeably higher than in January-April 2020 (36.00% and 32.10%, respectively). The share of long products in export supplies for 4 months in 2021 is inferior to the indicator for the same period in 2020 (15.53% in 2021 versus 17.10% in 2020).
The structure of imports in January-April 2021 is characterized by the domination of flat products over long products (54.10% and 43.33%, respectively); in the same period of 2020, on the contrary, the dominance of long products over flat products was observed (50.40% and 47.52%, respectively).
The main export markets of Ukrainian metal products in January-April 2021 are the countries of the European Union (31.4%), other European countries (22.9%) and NAFTA countries (9.4%).
Among metallurgical importers in the first quarter of 2021, the CIS ranks first (47.4%), the second is the EU-27 (23.9%), and the third is other European countries (14.2%).