Russia's pig iron exports dropped sharply in January

Author: Paul Ploumis
16 Apr 2015 Last updated at 03:16:29 GMT
MOSCOW (Scrap Monster): According to government statistics released yesterday, the pig iron exports by Russia during the month of January this year declined heavily when compared with the exports during same month a year before. Also, the exports dropped from the previous month.

Russia’s pig iron exports totaled 249,836 during January ’15. The total exports were down by 7.9% over the previous year. The country’s pig iron exports had totaled 271,266 tons during the month of January in 2014. The exports plunged by 26.5% from a month ago. Russia’s pig iron exports had totaled 573,755 tons during the last month of the previous year.

The largest importer of Russian pig iron during Jan ‘15 was the US with 180,534 tons. The exports to the US rose sharply by 134% when compared with the exports of 77,151 tons during the same month in 2014. The exports to the US in Jan ’15 accounted for 72.3% of the total pig iron exports by Russia during the month. The second largest importer was Italy. However, the imports by Italy dropped by 16.6% over the previous year to total 24,290 tons. In third place was Turkey with 11,920 tons. The other key export destinations of Russian pig iron were Germany (11,591 tons, down 17.6% y-o-y), Poland (8,496 tons, down 61.5%) and Belarus (5,168 tons, down 44.5%).

The pig iron exports by the country to the US dropped marginally by nearly 5% over the previous month. The exports to the US had totaled 189,407 tons in Dec ’14. The drop in exports to Italy was nearly 30% over the previous month. The exports to Turkey almost halved when matched with the previous month. The Russian pig iron exports to Italy and Turkey had totaled 34,733 tons and 23,482 tons respectively in Dec ’14.

The country’s pig iron exports during the entire year 2015 are estimated to total 3 million tons.