Ukraine’s producers and consumers of steelmaking raw materials are so far unaffected by the political and social crisis in the country and continue to trade inbound and outbound as usual.
"Business continues as normal; operations and export volumes are fine today [March 5],” said a source close to Ferrexpo, Ukraine’s largest iron ore exporter in 2013. It shipped more than 10.8 million mt of iron ore products accounting for almost 30% of Ukraine’s total iron ore exports.
Ferrexpo is closely followed by Ukraine’s largest steelmaking group Metinvest, which exported 10.7 million mt via its affiliated Severny, Tsentralny and Inguletsky Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plants.
In 2013, Ukraine exported 37.7 million mt of iron ore products, up 9.6% on 2012, with 83.5% (31.4 million mt) of the total in roughly equal proportions of concentrate and pellets. The country’s two major external markets–Central Europe and China–imported (16.2 million mt) and (15.9 million mt) from Ukraine, respectively, last year. Together, the two regions absorbed 85% of Ukraine’s iron ore exports, according to Kiev-based industry analysts UkrPromZovnishEkspertiza.
Nonetheless, in 2013 Ukraine imported 3.1 million mt of iron ore products, almost exclusively from Russia.
"Russia’s iron ore shipments to Ukraine have remained unchanged so far this year,” a source at one of Russia’s steel companies told Platts. The source added that in February, Russia exported 258,000 mt of iron ore to Ukraine and its last year’s average shipments there totaled 254,000 mt/month annualized to just over 3 million mt.
Regarding coking coal, last year Ukraine imported almost 11 million mt of coking coal for the needs of coke and steel makers, up 4% year on year. Just over 8 million mt were imported from Russia, and North America (mainly the US), with 3 million mt shipped, was the second largest coking coal supplier, UkrPromZovnishEkspertiza’s data show.
Total imports covered 42% of Ukraine’s steelworks’ coking coal consumption last year, reflecting the country’s growing dependence on imported coal.
"In 2013, half of Ukraine’s pig iron output was made with the use of pulverized coal injection technology meaning that the need for high-quality coking coal, which Ukraine’s mines provide in scarce quantities, is becoming more and more important,” Alexander Kraynikov at UkrPromZovnishEkspertiza said in a recent interview.
Meanwhile, Russian exports of iron ore, coke and pig iron are still moving through Ukrainian ports, according to sources at companies like Metalloinvest, which sells pellet and concentrate to South Korea and Japan via the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny in Odessa province, and Koks Group, Russia’s biggest exporter of metallurgical coke and pig iron.
Source: Platts