Annual bauxite import by Ukraine declined significantly in 2016. The total bauxite import for the year was estimated at 4.22 million tonnes, down 26.48 per cent from 5.74 million tonnes in 2015. The cost of bauxite import also went down from US$308.45 million in 2015 to US$294.72 million last year, declining 4.45 per cent year-on-year.
{alcircleadd}Ukraine is estimated to import 3.95 million tonnes of bauxite in 2017, down 7.1 per cent from last year. The total import of bauxite is estimated to be valued at US$326.37 million in 2017.
Bauxite imports in Ukraine registered an accelerated growth trend from 2013 till 2015. While the growth was estimated at around 12 per cent YoY in 2014, the figure almost doubled to reach around 23.9 per cent in 2015.
In fact, during January-March 2016, Ukraine's imports of aluminium ore and concentrate (bauxite) increased in real terms by 17.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2015, to 1.235 million tonnes. According to the customs statistics published by the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, imports of bauxite in monetary terms in those three months rose by 17.9 per cent, to $48.752 million. Imports were primarily made from Guinea, Guyana, and Brazil.
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The decline in bauxite import volume by Ukraine from 2015-end onward can be attributed to the increased domestic production of aluminium ore.
In the initial ten months period of 2016, that is, during January-September 2016, Boksit Timana (a part of RUSAL) in Komi Republic mined 2.39 million tons of bauxites, up by 4.9 per cent YoY. In third quarter of the last fiscal the company mined 911 thousand tons, up by 13.6 per cent from the previous quarter.
RUSAL, the largest aluminium conglomerate in the Russian Federation, operates 8 bauxite mines globally and in 2016, it mined 12,187 thousand tonnes of bauxite. For the three months ended 31 December 2015, the company produced 2,841 thousand tonnes bauxite, down 0.3 per cent from 2,850thousand tonnes in 2015.
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