Ukraine temporarily suspends rolled steel product shipments to Egypt

Ukrainian steel producers have temporarily suspended shipments of rolled steel products to Egypt, due to the political crisis in this country, Russian information agency Prime-Tass has reported, citing Vladimir Pikovskiy, head of the steel and mining industry department of Derzhzovnishinform (DZI), the Ukrainian national research and information center for monitoring international commodity markets.
 
According to Mr. Pikovskiy, none of the Ukrainian steel exporters will risk making shipments to Egypt until March. "No one is canceling contracts, but shipments in February are probably not worth the risk," he said, adding that the temporary stoppage of shipments of rolled steel products to Egypt will not affect the output of the Ukrainian steelmakers.
 
According to DZI data, in 2010 Ukraine's steelmakers exported 944,000 mt of rolled steel products to Egypt, accounting for 3.5 percent of total export of these products. Ukrainian steelmakers' total rolled steel product exports to North African countries amounted to 1.23 million mt in 2010, accounting for 4.6 percent of the total exports of Ukrainian steel products (27 million mt).