Ore Based Metallics
August 11, 2023
Call for ban on Ukraine’s ferrous scrap exports
Ukraine’s metal sector association Ukrmetallurgprom has reiterated its request for a temporary prohibition on foreign shipments of scrap steel after the latest customs service data showed exports of 101,615 t between January and July were 3.5 times higher than the year-ago period. They were valued at $29.8 M (€27.2 M), up 2.4 times.
But the country is losing much more, such as domestic supplies of strategically important raw materials for the country’s steel makers at a time of war with Russia, said Ukrmetallurgprom’s president Oleksander Kalenkov.
“If scrap metal remains in the country, more than 500,000 people will have jobs, and the country will have millions of foreign exchange earnings from steel exports,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
“No one will benefit from the export of scrap metal. Therefore, now the authorities must act proactively and temporarily ban exports until the situation stabilises and ceases to threaten national economic security,” said Kalenkov, who first made his call for a ban in June.
According to him, scrap metal exported through the EU has a preferential export duty of €3 /t, whereas exporting directly to customers would cost €180 /t in export duties. The government has to date lost UAH350 M ($9.44 M, €8.61 M) in revenue as a result and the State Bureau of Investigations has become interested in such export schemes, he claimed.
Scrap metal exports rose to at a peak of 21,003 t in May, descending to 9,567 t in July. Most (87.7%) was shipped to Poland.
Meanwhile, Ukrmetallurgprom says Ukraine’s crude steel production was 3.43 Mt in the first seven months of the year, 28.8% down on the year-ago period. Pig iron output fell 29.9% to 3.37 Mt and that of rolled metal by 31.5% to 2.9 Mt.
