Commodity market news on March 17, 2022

SMALL INDUSTRY NEWS

WORLD'S GOODS HIGHLIGHTS DAY 17.03

Although the tension between China and Australia regarding the mining and export of iron ore persists, for now, Australia still holds the position as the largest exporter of iron ore to the Chinese market. China, which accounts for nearly 80% of the country's iron ore imports each year. In 2021, Australia exported 704.8 million tonnes of iron ore to China, a slight decrease of 4.1 per cent year-on-year.

EU may impose more sanctions on Russia in the field of iron and steel exports

The European Union and the G7 countries are planning to continue to impose sanctions on Russia, and the new sanctions will target the ban on imports of key products from Russia. Although the EU has not given a definition of what the key items in this sanctions are, however, Russia's metal and steel products, which account for a large proportion of the EU's annual import turnover of goods, and due to That said, the market said, the possibility of EU banning iron and steel imports from Russia is very high.

According to the European Steel Association (Eurofer), the EU has imported 3.2 million tons of finished steel from Russia in 2020 and 3.7 million tons in 2021. Russia is currently the second largest supplier of finished steel products. for Europe, second only to Turkey. Currently, many Russian steel mining and manufacturing companies have had to stop shipments to the EU in early March due to the sanctions that the bloc is applying. At this time, it is not clear whether the EU will extend the export ban to European factories owned or associated with Russian companies.
or not.

Not only iron and steel, the metal industry is also fluctuating quite strongly due to the influence of the Russia-Ukraine war. Metal prices spiked due to a domino effect from the London Metal Exchange. Accordingly, during the period from February 23 to March 8, the price of steel in the UK increased to a very high level, while the price of Nickel increased by 97%, Zinc increased by 16%, Aluminum increased by 6.2% and Copper. increased by 3.5%. Currently, Russia is the fourth largest exporter of steel and steel products in the world, supplying steel to more than 150 countries and regions.
territory. The introduction of sanctions by Western countries on Russia's exports will have a detrimental impact on the diverse supply chains of the steel industry such as construction, automobiles, etc.