Ukrainian enterprises in January-February this year increased their consumption of rolled metal products by 50.47% year-on-year to 556.7 thousand tonnes.
According to a press release of the Ukrmetallurgprom association on Tuesday, 207.4 thousand tonnes, or 37.26% of the domestic market for metal-roll consumption, were imported during this period.
According to Ukrmetallurgprom, in 2M-2025 metal enterprises produced 957,000 tonnes of rolled metal products (106.3% against the same period in 2024), of which, according to the State Customs Service of Ukraine, about 607,700 tonnes, or 63.5%, were exported. In January-February 2024, the share of exports was 77.9% (701.4 thousand tonnes with total rolled metal production of 900.2 thousand tonnes).
The share of semi-finished products in export shipments in January-February 2025 is 33.21%, which is significantly lower than in January-February 2024 (47.46%). The share of flat products in export shipments for this period is noticeably higher than in last year’s January-February (47.79% and 38.68% respectively). The share of long products is also noticeably higher-19.01% vs. 13.86% respectively.
The structure of imports in January-February 2025 is still characterised by a significant dominance of flat products over long products-82.55% and 14.42% respectively. In Jan-Feb 2024, the dominance of flat rolled products over long products was also significant at 85.05% and 13.67% respectively.
“In 2 months of 2025, the domestic market capacity was 556,700 tonnes of rolled steel products, of which 207,400 tonnes or 37.26% was imports. In January-February 2024, the capacity of the domestic market was 370 thousand tonnes, of which 171.2 thousand tonnes or 46.27% were imported. Thus, in January-February 2025 there is an increase in the capacity of the domestic market relative to January-February 2024 by 50.47%, with a simultaneous reduction in the share of the import component by 9.01%”, – stated in the press release.
According to the State Customs Service, the main export markets for Ukrainian rolled metal products during the period this year are the countries of the European Union (73.8%), other Europe (13.5%) and the CIS (7.7%). Among steel importers in January-February 2025, the first place was occupied by other European countries (56.6%), the second – the EU-27 (24.5% ), the third – the countries of Asia (18.5%).
As reported, Ukraine’s rolled metal market in 2024 decreased by 6.26% year-on-year to 3 million 288.4 thousand tonnes, while in 2023 increased by 2.19 times compared to 2022 to 3 million 505.6 thousand tonnes.