The Netherlands is the Topmost Iron Ore Importer in the EU Region

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The iron ore imports by the EU member countries surged higher by just over 5% during the month of October 2017. In accordance with the most recent trade statistics published by the European Union Statistics Office (EUROSTAT), the combined iron ore imports by these countries during Jan-Oct ’17 stood marginally higher by 2.1% when matched with the previous year.

The EU member countries imported a total of 8.64 million tonnes of the steel making raw material during October last year. When matched with the imports of 8.21 million tonnes during October 2016, this was higher by nearly 5.2%. The value of imports surged higher significantly by nearly 48% from $498.5 million to $735.1 million. The price of imports too rose considerably by over 40% from 60.7 to 85.1 per tonne.

The top three ore importing nations during the month were the Netherlands, France and Germany. These three countries accounted for nearly 49% of the total imports during the month. The ore imports by the Netherlands, France and Germany totaled 2.136 million tonnes, 1.045 million tonnes and 1.022 million tonnes respectively.

The monthly non-agglomerated iron ore imports by the EU region totaled 6.490 million tonnes, marginally higher by 2.5% over the year. The value of imports totaled $498 million during the month. The non-agglomerated ore imports averaged at $76.7 per tonne. The top three importers were the Netherlands (1.859 million tonnes), France (881,198 tonnes) and the Czech Republic (586,041 tonnes).

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The region’s imports of agglomerated iron ore surged higher by 14% over the previous year to total 2.146 million tonnes, valued at $237.04 million. Germany topped among EU member countries with imports totaling 538,387 tonnes, followed by Slovakia (280,647 tonnes) and the Netherlands (277,565 tons).

As per EUROSTAT data, EU region’s combined iron ore imports during the first ten months of the year totaled 91.86 million tonnes. The agglomerated ore imports during Jan-Oct ’17 edged higher marginally by 3.4% to total 24.04 million tonnes. The Netherlands was the leading importer. The non-agglomerated ore imports during the ten-month period totaled 67.82 million tonnes. The Netherlands received 18.3 million tonnes of non-agglomerated ore during Jan-Oct ’17.