On October 23, following active discussions, the EU authorities disclosed the new, 19th package of sanctions against Russia, targeting to limit the activities of the sectors, fueling Russia’s military aggression of Ukraine, including energy, finance, military-related and industrial segments, which also include steel sector. The package includes further 69 individual listings and numerous restrictive measures in a few sectors.
Particularly, one of the Russia’s main mining and steel producing holdings Evraz pls was included in the consolidated list of persons, groups and entities, subject to the EU sanctions. In terms of steel business, based in Russia, the company is operating an integrated ZSMK asset, which is one of the largest billet, slab, rebar and rail producers in the country, mainly supplying the local market and Asian outlets. Another key asset of Evraz is NTMK, mainly selling in local and export markets from the Black Sea, lately has been mostly active in slab sales. Both large assets are BF-based and are supplying basic pig iron as well. Additionally, EVRAZ KGOK is one of the key assets of the group, concentrating on high value iron ore and agglomerate production.
While the official comment by Evraz states that the company “is assessing the implications of this designation and will comply with all applicable laws and regulations,” the steel market players are trying to evaluate the possible outcome as well. In the Black Sea region, the company was mainly active in slab sales, particularly to Turkey, and occasional BPI exports as well. “I’m not sure that supplies will change much from Tagil [NTMK], at least to Turkey, since most buyers had basically no problem earlier with supplies from other sanctioned mills from Russia. The issue is that the prices will have to be lower now compared to clean materials, due to the increased risks,” a market source comments to SteelOrbis.
In the Far East, Evraz is one of the major ex-Russia billet sellers with the major destination being Taiwan, where the sales from Russia are mainly impacted by the price competition with China. However, rising sanctions could bring additional pressure on Russian billet sales to other Asian countries like the Philippines. Ex-Evraz slab has been also sold in Asia from ZSMK asset, mainly to Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia.
In terms of pig iron market, Europe has already been closed for Russian exporters as its almost all annual quota finished by the end of March 2025 and Russian pig iron (no matter producer is sanctioned or not) is banned in the EU. Since then, there were rumors about two cargoes shipped to Europe, which were suspected carrying Russian pig iron but with documents for other origins. Evraz specifically is focused on pig iron sales in the Far East, or rarely to Turkey.
Evraz pls has joined the list of the Russian mills, already sanctioned by the EU and the US, which by now includes Severstal, Metalloinvest, MMK, while some of the companies with the production in the southern part of Russia are subject to sanctioned only through their owners or top management earlier included in the sanctions list. Currently, out of Russia’s most significant producers of steel and raw materials only NLMK, Industrial Metallurgical Holding (Tula) and Ural Steel are not under the sanctions by the west.