Problems of sale of iron ore in Ukraine
12 March 2017
In 2016, the manufacture of goods from iron ore has declined to 70 million tons. Taking into account all the producers went downhill GRC Krivoy Rog.
At the Enterprise have noticed that the trend of declining demand for iron ore last years was broken. The demand for raw materials largely depends on how economically beyond local supplies local businesses on mountain extraction. In 2016, the level of domestic sales of companies grew by 3 million tons, while imports shrank at a million tons.
Major manufacturers of raw materials from iron ore had previously been Northern, Ingulets, and Novokrivorozhsky GOKs «Mittal steel Krivoy Rog». But the main buyers on the domestic market was «ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih» and «Ilyich iron and steel works».
In the field of iron ore export situation is still a little different. If judged not by the statistics of exports, and for the actual discharge from the plants, the difference with the previous year reached almost 8 million tons. The decline in exports amounted to 37.7 million tons.
According to the UPE from a geographical point of view, the main cuts in shipments was targeted at China. It’s up to us market decreased by almost 10 million tons. Chinese market the most distant and minimally competitive for Ukrainian suppliers. However, there are regions in which seen a significant increase in growth. These include Serbia, adding 650 thousand tons, and Japan with + 575 thousand tons.
If we consider the types of raw materials for production, the least exported is concentrate. The decline also was noticeable on the pellets, 2 million tons. The agglomerate in the past year were not exported.
According to experts this situation was caused not by high prices in the first half. At this time, the producers deliberately left the supply to the Chinese market and increase of discharge in the country. In the second half of the year prices increased dramatically, and manufacturers are unable to quickly restructure their production according to technical and environmental conditions.
According to forecasts, in 2017 the market will be dominated by the surplus. Ukraine has enough reserves to carry the surplus to other countries. To increase the export plan by about 3−4 million tons, given the high rates at the beginning of the year. The demand in the country is projected at approximately 1 million tons.
