The EU continues to reduce imports of semi-finished products from Russia

In the first four months of 2024, the European Union reduced imports of Russian mining and metallurgical products by 20.4% y-o-y to 1.52 million tonnes. Import expenditure fell by 16.3 % to EUR 801.15 million.

Semi-finished products accounted for the main share of imports, accounting for 79.3% of the total volume. It should be recalled that the European Union extended the Russian slab quotas until September 2028, bringing the total to 8.5 million tonnes.

In January-April 2024, the EU imported 1.2 million tonnes of semi-finished products from Russia, down by 3.8% compared to the same period last year, with Belgium being the largest importer (482.8 thousand tonnes,-7%).

Pig iron imports decreased by 23.4% to 269.18 thousand tonnes. The main pig iron consumer was Italy with 167.7 thousand tonnes (-42%).

Ferroalloys increased by 70.3% to 28.41 thousand tonnes, while the Netherlands imported 20.8 thousand tonnes (+106.5%).

Iron ore fell by a significant almost 98% to 9.36 thousand tonnes, with Slovakia being the only importer (-93%).

Scrap imports decreased by 4.8% y-o-y to 7.96 thousand tonnes, with the largest imports going to Lithuania with 7.1 thousand tonnes (+0.7%).

EU imports of MMC products from Russia fell by 23.8% m-o-m and 16.4% y-o-y to 407.04 thousand tonnes in April 2024. Import expenditures fell by 25.3% compared to March and by 17.1% compared to April 2023 to EUR 217.7 million.

The EU reduced its imports of MMC products from Russia in 2023 to 4.8 million tonnes (39.5% year-on-year), while import expenditures fell by 38.5% to €2.4 billion. Semi-finished products accounted for the main share of imports, 69.4% of the total.