As previously announced, the next anti-Russian sanctions package approved by the European Council on October 6 included the ban on imports of steel semi-finished products - slabs and billet from Russia to the EU.
However, a number of companies urged the European Commission to avoid this step, stating that stopping slab imports from Russia would endanger the regional rolling industry as there are not enough substitutes.
Therefore, the European Commission announced sanctions on steel semi-finished products, initiating a "transitional period" until 2024. In particular, Russian companies will be allowed to export 3,748 million tons of slabs to the EU from October 2022 to September 2024. The quota for harvest will be 487.2 thousand tons from October 2022 to September 2023, 85.26 thousand tons for the fourth quarter of 2023 and 48.72 thousand tons for the first quarter of 2024.
Previously, the Belgian government expressed its concern that these bans would cause the NLMK group to close its rolling mills which also operates in Denmark, Italy and France, and cause many job losses. Russia's quota covers more than the entire supply of semi-finished products of these plants.
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