Steel industry in Russia - statistics & facts

Production of steel — an alloy of iron, carbon, and sometimes other elements — is a major segment of Russian ferrous metallurgy, along with ironmaking. Having inherited a strong industry from the Soviet period, Russia ranks fifth by monthly crude steel production, following China, India, Japan, and the United States. Roughly 60 percent of steel produced in Russia is obtained using the basic oxygen furnace, a method in which oxygen is blown into molten pig iron in a converter. The country's largest steelmakers in 2021 were Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK), Evraz, and Severstal. In order to increase tax revenues from metallurgical producers, the government set an excise tax of 2.7 percent for semi-finished steel products starting from 2022.

Steel consumption in Russia

Domestically, steel is mostly used in construction (e.g., for metal beams and pipes) and manufacturing (e.g., vehicle, electronics, and food production). Russia's apparent steel use reached almost 44 million metric tons of finished steel products in 2021, having exceeded the pre-pandemic level. The per capita apparent steel consumption neared 306 kilograms of finished steel products in 2021, up five percent from the previous year. Besides producing its own steel, Russia imports various products and is particularly dependent on stainless steel imports.

Steel export trade in Russia

Russia was the third-leading exporting market of steel and the fourth-leading exporter of steel scrap worldwide in 2020. Over the course of 2021, the total value of iron and steel exports from the country reached approximately 29 billion U.S. dollars, having significantly increased from the previous year. Turkey and Mexico were the leading destination markets by exports in monetary terms. Furthermore, Russia widely exported steel products into the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), such as Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Western sanctions on Russian steel

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) banned imports of iron and steel from Russia. In 2020, Russia was the second-leading supplier of finished steel products to the EU after Turkey, with the imports measured at nearly 270 million metric tons. Furthermore, iron and steel were the second major export commodity of Russia to the EU, valued at nearly 8.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. The European market occupied roughly one third of the revenue of Severstal, one of Russia's major steel producers. While the U.S. government did not impose a trade ban on Russian steel, it sanctioned the company MMK, the second-largest steel producer in Russia.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.
Published by Statista Research Department, Dec 21, 2023

Key insights

Steel market size in Russia
62.09bn USD
Crude steel production in Russia
71.5m mt
Leading steel producer in Russia
NLMK
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Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Leading steel companies in Russia in 2022, by production volume (in million metric tons)

Metals

Leading steel companies in Russia 2022, by production

Total production of crude steel in Russia from 2010 to 2022 (in million metric tons)

Base Metals

Crude steel production in Russia 2010-2022

Export value of iron and steel from Russia from 2012 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Base Metals

Iron and steel export value in Russia 2012-2022

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