Stainless steel consumption in Russia increased by 27%.

The association 'Spetsstal' has reported that the visible consumption of the main types of stainless steel products in Russia increased by 27.3% to 661.9 thousand tonnes in 2023, compared to 2022.

This represents an 11.7% increase from 2021.

In 2023, the consumption of flat cold-rolled products increased by 32.7%, flat hot-rolled products by 7.3%, long products by 39.1%, welded pipes by 3.5%, seamless pipes by 71.5%, and wire by 62.6%.

The consumption of primary billets decreased by 27.0%.

Foreign products (including re-exports) accounted for 73.4% and domestic products for 26.6% of the total consumption of stainless steel (71.3% and 28.7% respectively in 2022).

Visible consumption of foreign products increased by 31% to 485.9 thousand tonnes, while that of Russian products increased by 18% to 176.0 thousand tonnes.

The sectors with the highest dependence on foreign products (over 50%) for stainless steel consumption in Russia were flat cold-rolled products, where the share of imported products was 96.2% (99.3% in 2022), flat hot-rolled products - 78.7% (78.6%), seamless pipes - 76.8% (59.6%) and wire - 75.8% (79.8%).
In 2023, the share of imports in the consumption of welded pipes was 38.2%, while for long products and primary billets, it was 27.0% and 13.8%, respectively.

It is worth noting that some Russian products are made from foreign billets, such as wire, welded and seamless pipes, and flat rolled products. Taking this into account, the share of foreign products in the apparent volume of consumption increased slightly to 79.4% in 2023 from 78.7% in 2022.