The European Commission has announced the fourth package of restrictive measures to be applied to imports from Russia.
Accordingly, the EU will ban the import of steel products other than semi-finished products, which are currently under safeguards. The ban is expected to affect these steel exports from Russia.
The European Union imported a total of 9.1 million tons of steel products from Russia in 2021, 5.4 million tons of which are semi-finished products (billet and slab products).
Ukraine, which exported a total of 15.7 million tons of steel, 6.9 million tons of which was billet and slab, in 2021, exported a total of 5.8 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of which was semi-finished products, to the European Union.
Considering that steel plants in Ukraine have stopped their operations and steel imports from Russia will be banned, approximately 15 million tons of steel products exported from these two countries to the EU market in 2021 will be left out of the market.
It is considered that the ongoing energy-based production cuts/stops in the European Union, the increase in domestic production may remain at a limited level, and the possible increase in imports will not reach the levels that can satisfy the EU market due to the quotas in practice.
Since the 14.9 million tons of steel products imported by the EU from Russia and Ukraine in 2021 corresponds to 33.7% of the EU27's total steel imports and 9.3% of the total steel consumption, the loss to be experienced in imports from these countries will cause new supply shortages in the markets and expected to increase price increases.
Import quotas allocated to Russian materials will be redistributed among other third countries to compensate for the reduction in supply.
It is foreseen that the energy-related production problems in Europe will continue to increase the supply tightness in the global steel markets.
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