Will Russian metallurgists be able to redirect supplies to Asia

After the ban on the supply of products to the European Union due to sanctions, Russian metallurgists announced a reorientation of exports to the East.But they will have to give discounts to customers and solve problems with logistics.

Russian ferrous metallurgy enterprises will have to reorient about 4 million tons of steel products per year to the eastern direction. The reason is the sanctions and other restrictions imposed by Western countries against RUSSIA in response to a military special operation in Ukraine.

Such a preliminary assessment is given in a letter from the president of the Russian Steel Association (which unites the largest ferrous metallurgy companies), the main owner of Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, which he sent to First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov on March 28. RBC has a copy of the letter, its authenticity was confirmed by one of the members of the association. RBC sent inquiries to Russian Steel and Belousov's office.

According to the European steel association Eurofer, the EU imported 3.74 million tons of finished steel products from Russia in 2021. Of these, 2.86 million tons were flat products.

What restrictions did the EU impose on steel and raw materials from Russia

Severstal announced on March 2 that it was halting supplies to Europe due to the fact that its main shareholder Alexei Mordashov fell under EU sanctions. On March 15, the EU imposed a ban on the import of a wide range of steel products from Russia. The list includes, among other things, uncoated hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel, long products, some types of welded and seamless pipes. But the ban does not apply to steel slab and iron ore, one of the largest suppliers of which to the EU is Russia .

In early March, Lithuanian Railways announced the cessation of transportation of Metalloinvest products, whose shareholder Alisher Usmanov was included in the EU sanctions list. Last year, this transport company transported more than 1 million tons of Metalloinvest's products. In addition, some cargoes from Russia, including metals, are refused to be accepted by some European ports.