Iron Ore Imports Tumbled 36% in Germany:EUROSTAT

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The trade data from Eurostat suggests sharp decline in iron ore imports by Germany during the month of October last year. The October ’17 imports recorded sharp 36% decline over the previous year.

The German ore imports totaled 2.773 million tonnes in Oct ’17. The imports fell sharply when compared with the imports of 4.330 million tonnes during the corresponding month in 2016. The total value of imports too fell by nearly 17% from $305.8 million in Oct ’16 to $255.1 million in October last year. Meantime, per tonne price of the steelmaking raw material climbed higher significantly by almost 30% from 70.6 to 92.0.

The key iron ore supplier to Germany during the month was the Netherlands. The imports from that country totaled 1.642 million tonnes, accounting for almost 60% of total imports by the country. The other primary exporters were Brazil (410,305 tonnes), Canada (353,406 tonnes), Sweden (108,818 tonnes) and Ukraine (108,131 tonnes).

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Out of the 2.773 million tonnes of iron ore imported by the country, non-agglomerated iron ore imports totaled 1.820 million tonnes. The imports dropped sharply by nearly 36% when matched with the imports of 2.827 million tonnes in October 2017. The primary import sources were the Netherlands, Brazil and Sweden. Meantime, the agglomerated ore imports by the country too dropped sharply by 37% from 1.503 million tonnes to 952,979 tonnes. The country imported agglomerated ore mainly from the Netherlands, Canada and Brazil.

The cumulative iron ore imports by Germany during the initial ten-month period of the previous year were down marginally by 4.0% to 33.538 million tonnes. The imports had totaled 34.949 million tonnes during the corresponding ten-month period in 2016. The top three ore exporters to Germany were the Netherlands (16.66 million tonnes), Brazil (5.098 million tonnes) and Sweden (4.147 million tonnes) during Jan-Oct ’17.