PRESS: EU may start anti-dumping investigation of Russian fittings

MOSCOW, Feb 25 (PRIME) -- Association of European metals producers Eurofer can soon ask the European Commission to start an investigation on imports of metallic fittings from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday, citing industry sources.

Russian only exports 4,000 tonnes of fittings to the E.U. a month in 2015, according to Eurofer. Metal Expert said that Russia exported 39,000 tonnes of fittings to the union in 2015. A source in a Russian metals producer told Kommersant, “Fittings are a local product as a rule, and nobody has seriously expected a growth of exports to the E.U.”

The average E.U. fittings price stands at U.S. $450–600 per tonne, and last year Russian companies could have earned $17–24 million, but including exports of semi-finished product square billets, the revenue of key exporters Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), Metalloinvest, Evraz and Novorosmetall could total $215–250 million.

Association Russian Steel and the Economic Development Ministry estimated Russian steel producers’ losses from all E.U. anti-dumping investigations at $1 billion annually. This estimate includes a 19.8–26.2% duty on imports of Russian cold rolled steel introduced by the European Commission earlier after an investigation.

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