Key points: • Global exports of iron and steel amounted to 541,429,984 metric tons in 2019. It was 553,802,285 metric tons in 2016 which represents a contraction by 2.23%. • Top exporters include China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Germany. Top importers include the United States, Germany, Italy, China and South Korea. • China is by far the largest exporter of iron and steel in 2019 having exported 87.3 million metric tons which equals approximately 15.8 % of global exports; it represents a 29.5% decrease from 2016 (a fall of ...

Turkey’s steel exports to the U.S. and European Union (EU) market have dropped nearly 2.7 million tons between January and November 2019, compared with the numbers recorded the year before, due to additional protection tariffs imposed by Washington and the bloc. The Turkish steel industry’s total exports to the U.S. decreased to 309,000 tons during that period, which was recorded at 1.1 million tons the year before, according to data by the Turkish Steel Producers Association (TÇÜD). The data revealed that the exports to the EU also decreased to 7.1 ...

Belarus received the first batch of Norwegian oil at its Naftan refinery, state oil company Belneftekhim said on Sunday following a row with Belarus’s main oil supplier Russia. Moscow suspended oil supplies to refineries in Belarus from Jan. 1, though it partially restored them on Jan. 4, after both countries failed to agree terms on supplies for 2020. Minsk has arranged an import of 86,000 tonnes of crude from Norway’s Johan Sverdrup field via Lithuania’s Klaipeda. On Sunday Naftan, one of the two major Belarusian refineries that have been running ...

Chinese coal imports jumped 7% last year to 300m tonnes as international prices for the fuel plunged to levels too attractive to resist, despite government intentions to keep foreign purchases flat. The world’s biggest coal consumer managed to squeak its total imports in under an unofficial import goal thanks to a plunge in December volumes to just 2.8m tonnes, comprehensive customs data showed on Thursday, confirming preliminary estimates from last week. December’s imports were down from nearly 21m tonnes in November and 73% lower than the same month last year. ...

Just over a week after the U.S. and China signed a critical “phase one” trade agreement, it’s still unclear how a key aspect will play out. China agreed to buy at least $200 billion more in U.S. goods and services relative to the 2017 level over the next two years. The projected purchases include at least $32 billion more in agricultural products, with an unspecified amount of soybeans. So far, doubts remain about how quickly such a ramp-up can occur, especially given seasonality and the fact that Chinese tariffs of ...

Middle East oil producers are investing in more Southeast Asia energy projects to keep their market share as US crude exports grow in a region that is equivalent to India’s $3 trillion economy. The most immediate project to come to fruition is Malaysia’s Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical, or PREfChem, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Petronas in the Johor province adjacent to Singapore. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., the UAE’s biggest oil producer, also signed an agreement with Indonesia’s Pertamina last year to explore opportunities. Potential investments between the ...

New US sanctions aimed at shutting down illicit petroleum and petrochemical trade between Iran and China will not substantially impact China’s status as the top importer of Iranian crude, with more than 200,000 b/d of illicit flows expected to continue, analysts said. “With these new sanctions, the US is essentially mowing the lawn on illicit Chinese trade,” said Henry Rome, an Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group. “US sanctions have thus far not deterred much of it, hence the need for frequent rounds of new action.” Late Thursday, the US ...

The Indonesian government has slashed Pertamina’s crude import allowance for 2020 as Jakarta extends its efforts to lower the country’s current account deficit, strengthening the impetus for the state-run refiner to pick up more US crude as light sweet North American grades come much cheaper than Southeast Asian feedstocks. Earlier this month, the government ordered Pertamina to cut its crude oil and condensate imports by 30 million barrels in 2020, the Energy and Mines Ministry’s acting oil and gas director general Djoko Siswanto said. The reduction in import quota suggests ...

JERA, the world’s biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), said a cargo of LNG from the U.S. Freeport project arrived at its Kawagoe thermal power station in Mie on Thursday, marking the first delivery from the project to Japan. The Freeport LNG project in Texas, United States, started production at its first liquefaction train last August and shipped its first cargo in September, adding to a global LNG surplus. JERA’s first cargo, carrying about 70,000 tonnes, is also the first cargo from Freeport’s LNG project to reach Japan, where ...

Azerbaijan has increased the volume of gas products exports to Georgia The Azerbaijani State Oil Company’s (SOCAR) gas exports to Georgia increased by 11.3 percent year-on-year in 2019 to reach 1 billion 229.7 million cubic meters. “In 2018, SOCAR exported 1 billion 105 million cubic meters to Georgia. In 2019, deliveries amounted to 1 billion 229.7 million cubic meters, which is 11.3 percent higher than the previous year,” the Energy Ministry told local media. In 2019, Georgia also imported 1 billion 176.4 million cubic meters of gas from the Shah ...

Reluctance among Indian traders to ship premium basmati rice to Iran as U.S. sanctions hobble its ability to pay has contributed to a sharp drop in overall exports from the world’s biggest supplier of the grain, trade and government sources said. Rice shipments from India slipped by more than a quarter to 5.5 million tonnes between April and November 2019 — the first eight months of the fiscal year — from 7.5 million tonnes in the year-ago period, the sources said. In terms of value, exports dropped 19% to $3.8 ...

When the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) began the process of concessioning the country’s seaports, the exercise was aimed at enthroning efficiency, ensuring ease of doing business, and bolstering revenue-yielding activities, among others. Within a couple of years, about 24 terminals were concessioned to private players, in a process that was not without its fair share of absurdities, principal among them being transparency concerns and questionable corporate governance components. Nearly 15 years after the exercise was completed, opinions are varied whether the exercise was worth it, not ...

Global container shipping lines have flayed the recent decision of the government allowing certain category of importers to pay the terminal handling charges (THC) directly to the terminals, bypassing the carriers, arguing that it would “not help the cause of reducing the logistic costs” of India’s trade. The Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA) India, a lobby group for global container carriers operating from/to India that includes Maersk Line, MSC and CMA CGM, said the government was barking up the wrong tree in its bid to cut logistics costs. “The THC ...

The U.S. government said on Friday domestic producers of fabricated structural steel were being harmed by imports from China, Canada and Mexico. The U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement that fabricated structural steel from the three countries had been sold at less than fair value at rates of up to 6.7 percent for Canada, up to 154.1 percent for China and up to 30.6 percent for Mexico. It also said steel from China and Mexico had received unfair subsidies at rates of up to 206.5 percent for China and ...

Russia will continue to be the biggest player on the global energy market with plans to increase natural gas deliveries to Europe and Asia, according to the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev. “We believe gas is very ecologically friendly. It produces 45 percent less emissions than coal and 30 percent less than oil,” he said at the “Global Energy Challenge” session of the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to Dmitriev, Russia accounts for 20 percent of the world’s gas supplies, and will continue to ...