In 2016 scrap procurement dropped to 3.5 million tons, the lowest result in the last 20 years. The main reasons for this are the thinning of the main sources of raw materials, machine-building stagnation, decrease in dollar purchasing prices, etc.
“Ukraine has a considerable reserve of the outdated metal. The total volume is 600 million tons, with 390 million tons, or 65%, being the old metal that has to be replaced. But the lack of investments does not allow us to get enough scrap”, Ukrpromvneshexpertisa deputy director Yuri Dobrovolsky said.
The shortage of scrap on the local market led to hostilities between metal makers and scrap exporters, resulting in court trials. The decree on licensing cancellation and the introduction of the 30 euro per ton export duty resulted in small exports in Q4 2016.
In 2016 Ukraine exported 277 thousand tons of scrap, down almost 5-fold YoY. The main importer was Turkey (99.7%). Imports reached 43.2 thousand tons, as opposed to 4.7 thousand tons in 2015. Kazakhstan used to be the main supplier of scrap to Ukraine, but after the prohibition of scrap exports Kazakhstan ceased supplying this raw material. At present most scrap volume arrives from Russia.
Local deliveries in 2016 increased to 3198 thousand tons, up by 281 thousand tons YoY. The total need of metal works in scrap last year amounted to 3.9 million tons, while deliveries (without imports) reached 3.3 million tons. Thus the shortage of scrap totaled 0.55 million tons, against 0.33 million tons in 2015. (Ukrainian metal)
