Sanctions in Europe and the United States have led to difficulties in Russian steel exports. After seven months, the trade flow of global steel market supply is also changing. At present, the market is basically divided into two categories, the market of low-priced varieties (mainly Russian steel) and the market of high-priced varieties (the market with no or a small amount of Russian steel).

In the past period, Russia's supply to Central Asia has increased significantly, including the supply of flat products to Uzbekistan, which increased by 38% year-on-year, and the supply of flat and long products to Kyrgyzstan, which increased by 38% and 300% year-on-year. In other words, Central Asia belongs to the low-priced flat and long products market.

It is worth noting that despite the European sanctions on Russian steel, Russia's pig iron imports to Europe in the second quarter of 2022 increased by 250% year-on-year. Europe is still the largest importer of Russian semi-finished products, of which Belgium imported the largest volume and imported in the second quarter. The amount is 660,000. tons, accounting for 52% of total European imports of semi-finished products. And in the future, Europe will continue to import from Russia, because it has no clear sanctions on Russian semi-finished products. However, the United States has stopped importing Russian flat products since May, and the import volume of flat products in the second quarter fell by about 95% year-on-year. The United States has become a relatively high-priced flat market due to reduced supplies from Russia.