Europe Plans to Close its Market to Russian Metal Imports
The European Commission plans to introduce anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled flat metal products from China and Russia, as reported by Reuters on January 28th, citing sources familiar with the plans of the commission.
Officially, the introduction of the new policy will be announced on February 14th, and will be finalized on August 12th, provided the anti-dumping investigation confirms the underpricing accusations, according to the website of the European Commission. Usually, anti-dumping duties are adopted for five years, Reuters says.
The anti-dumping duties will affect primarily the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine (NLMC) which belongs to Vladimir Lisin, and the Severstal Steel Company, which belongs to Alexei Mordashov.
In 2015 the companies exported to Europe 350,000 and 300,000 tons of cold-rolled sheet steel, respectively. Overall, Russia delivered 900,000 tons of these products in last year. Taking into account the average price of cold sheet steel in Europe at 350-360 dollars per ton, the total value of the supply in 2015 reached approximately 320-340 million dollars.
Officially, the Russian metallurgists won't comment on the situation before the publication of the official results of the investigation. But sources in the two largest steel companies said that duties in this amount will effectively prevent Russian companies from doing business in Europe.
The investigation of the European Commission on the import of cold-rolled steel was launched in May 2015 after a complaint was made by the European steel producers association, Eurofer. They accused Chinese and Russian metallurgists of artificially lowering prices for cold-rolled products used in the production of automobiles and home appliances.
Earlier, on January 22nd, penalty duties on Russian steel were introduced by Turkey.
The Ministry of Economy has established a duty on hot-rolled flat steel from Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMC) which is owned by Viktor Rashnikov (13.7%), Severstal (12.4%) and NLMC (9.4%). Among Turkish imports of hot-rolled steel, Russian steel accounts for 19.2% (825 thousand tons).