The Russian government has recently announced its decision to reduce the minimum export duty on pig iron to $54/mt versus $115/mt as had initially been planned. The decree, which was signed by Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin on July 16, applies to shipments of pig iron from August 1 to December 31 this year. However, the export duty has remained at 15 percent. As SteelOrbis reported earlier, according to a government decree signed at the end of June, the duty rate on pig iron would have been 15 percent, but not less than $115/mt.
"Given the purpose of the launch of an export duty (additional revenues to the federal budget in order to ensure compensation for price increases for state construction projects), taking into account the nature of the export duty rate that is actually prohibitive for the export of pig iron, the continued growth of domestic and global prices for pig iron, it has been proposed to establish the export duty rate for this product (...) by analogy with hot briquetted iron," the government’s explanatory statement said.