Market evolution: Carbon steel billets (CN 720720) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the European Union's external trade in CN 720720 — semi-finished products of iron or non-alloy steel containing ≥ 0.25% carbon by weight (commonly referred to as carbon steel billets, blooms, and slabs) — over the period 2015–2025. The analysis draws on customs data aggregated at the EU trade-dashboard level and covers imports, exports, production, partner concentration, and vulnerability indicators.

The decade under review was one of pronounced structural transformation. EU imports of carbon steel billets collapsed in volume by 72.7% (from 712,511 t to 194,372 t) while the import bill fell by 61.8% (from €322.3 million to €123.2 million). Over the same span, EU export values rose by 136.0% (from €33.8 million to €79.7 million). These simultaneous shifts — one a retrenchment, the other an expansion — reflect a combination of geopolitical ruptures, trade-defence policy, the post-pandemic commodity super-cycle, and a long-term contraction of domestic billet-making capacity. The sections that follow unpack these dynamics in detail.

1. From Dependence to Diversification: The Remaking of Import Supply Chains

1.1 The overall import contraction was steep and sustained

Between 2015 and 2025, EU imports of carbon steel billets fell from 712,511 t (€322.3 m) to 194,372 t (€123.2 m). The steepest year-on-year declines coincided with the 2020 pandemic shock and the EU's safeguard-measure regime for steel imports, which tightened quotas for many supplying countries. The minimum import volume over the period was 161,380 t (likely in 2022 or 2023), roughly one-fifth of the 2015 baseline.

Note: Intermediate-year absolute figures are not individually listed in the source data; the table highlights the first and last observations and the key magnitude change. The average import price rose 40.1% over the period.

1.2 Traditional suppliers — the UK and Russia — effectively exited the market

The most dramatic partner-level shift involved the United Kingdom, which in 2015 supplied €203.7 m of billets to the EU (by far the largest single source). By 2025, UK-origin imports had collapsed to €19.2 m — a decline of 90.5%. This sharp drawdown reflects both Brexit-related customs frictions and, more importantly, the restructuring of UK steelmaking (notably the transition at Tata Steel Port Talbot and British Steel Scunthorpe away from primary blast-furnace billet production).

The Russian Federation's share followed a similar arc: from €47.6 m in 2015 to just €1.7 m in 2025, a decline of 96.4%. The EU's sanctions packages imposed after February 2022 progressively restricted steel imports from Russia, and the data confirms near-total displacement by the final year. India followed a parallel path — from €30.1 m to virtually zero (€102), a 100% drop — partly reflecting India's own export restrictions on steel products beginning in 2022.

1.3 China emerged as the new dominant supplier, reshaping the import landscape

In the vacuum left by the UK, Russia, and India, China surged to become the EU's largest single source of carbon steel billets by value, rising from €7.0 m in 2015 to €51.5 m in 2025 — a 634% increase. Switzerland also registered a very large proportional increase (+812%), likely reflecting transit and re-export activity rather than indigenous billet production. Ukraine's decline was modest (−26.4%), and the country remained a significant supplier throughout, although the 2022 invasion disrupted but did not sever the flow.

This supplier rotation coincided with a significant deconcentration of imports: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) for import value fell from 4,364 in 2015 to 2,369 in 2025 (−45.7%). In 2015, the UK alone accounted for well over half of all import value; by 2025, no single partner held a comparable share. This diversification, while reducing dependency on any one origin, has simultaneously exposed the EU to a much wider range of supplier-country risks, including China's industrial-policy-driven overcapacity.

2. The EU's Eroding Self-Sufficiency in Billets

2.1 Domestic production fell sharply in volume even as its value rose

EU production of carbon-steel semi-finished products declined from 17,257,768 t (€4.52 bn) in 2015 to 13,182,869 t (€6.77 bn) in 2025 — a drop of 23.6% by volume but an increase of 49.7% by value. This divergence points to the well-documented rise in steelmaking costs (energy, carbon permits under the EU ETS, raw-material inflation) and a structural shift towards higher-value, more-specialised billet grades. Production hit its lowest volume at 10,215,565 t (likely around 2020–2021), some 41% below the 2015 peak.

The gap between declining production and a shrinking (but non-zero) import bill left the EU with a rising net import reliance: the ratio climbed from 11.6% in 2015 to 27.3% in 2025, peaking at 32.8% at some point during the period. In other words, even though the EU imported far fewer tonnes, those imports now represent a much larger share of the domestic consumption envelope — a clear sign that the domestic supply base eroded faster than demand.

2.2 Export propensity declined, confirming a domestic capacity squeeze

The EU's export propensity — the share of domestic production that is exported — fell from 4.6% to 2.8% over the period. This indicator registered the highest salience score (84.9) among the vulnerability metrics, confirming that the EU increasingly uses its billet output for downstream domestic consumption rather than for external sale. Combined with trade intensity rising to 30.8%, the picture is one of a market that has become structurally more open and import-dependent even as the absolute volume of imports has contracted.

2.3 Specialisation data reveals uneven industrial geography within the EU

The revealed comparative advantage (RCA) analysis for 2025 shows that only a handful of EU Member States have a genuine export specialisation in carbon steel billets. Czechia (RCA = 3.99), Denmark (3.00), and Spain (2.32) lead, while Germany — the EU's largest billet producer by share (38.2% of production) — posts a more modest RCA of 1.80. At the opposite end, Ireland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Finland, and Portugal show negligible specialisation (RCA ≈ 0), indicating that billet production and trade is concentrated in a limited number of member states, heightening the EU's collective exposure to plant closures or disruptions in those locations.

3. Price Cycles, Supply Shocks, and the Billet Boom of 2021–2022

3.1 Prices followed a pronounced boom-and-bust cycle

The period 2015–2025 encompassed the most extreme price volatility in the modern history of the carbon steel billet market. EU average import prices rose from €452/t in 2015 to a peak of €1,112/t (the maximum over the period) — likely in 2021 or 2022, mirroring the global steel price spike driven by the post-COVID demand recovery, supply-chain disruptions, and surging energy costs. By 2025, prices had partially corrected to €634/t, still 40.1% above the 2015 starting point.

Export prices followed a similar but amplified trajectory, rising from €833/t to a peak of €1,824/t (+119%) before settling at €1,108/t (+33.1%). The higher level of export prices relative to import prices is consistent with the EU exporting higher-grade, more-specialised billet products while importing more commoditised grades.

3.2 Specific price shocks struck North African and US export routes

The shock-detection analysis identifies three notable price anomalies in EU billet exports:

• Morocco (2021): An abnormality score of 46.0 and a +172.1% price shift, accounting for 3.9% of export value. This likely reflects EU-origin billets replacing Russian or Ukrainian supply disrupted during 2021 pre-war tensions and shipping bottlenecks.
• Tunisia (2021): A +111.1% price shift (abnormality 22.9, 2.5% of value share), following a pattern similar to Morocco.
• United States (2023): A +525.5% price shift (abnormality 19.9, 12.4% of value share). This stands out as the largest proportional shock and may reflect specific US Section 232 tariff waivers or quota allocations opening a lucrative but volatile window for EU billet exporters.

The highest coefficient of variation in import flows was recorded for the United States (1.86), Vietnam (1.71), and Russia (1.74), indicating the most erratic supply patterns. On the export side, Ukraine (CV = 3.19) and Tunisia (3.22) exhibited the highest volatility, consistent with conflict and North African political instability, respectively.

3.3 The product-mix shifted decisively away from high-carbon square billets

A closer look at the product-segment breakdown reveals that the import decline was concentrated overwhelmingly in one sub-product: 72072017 (high-carbon square/rectangular billets, ≥ 0.6% carbon, rolled or continuously cast). This product's import volume fell from 291,959 t in 2015 to just 23,551 t in 2025 — a collapse of 92%. Its value decline was even steeper in relative terms (from €132.7 m to €17.7 m). In contrast, 72072032 (wide rectangular billets, ≥ 0.25% carbon) saw imports recover from 50,631 t in 2017 (after a 2016 dip) to 129,634 t in 2024 and 83,306 t in 2025, with its value share rising to €43.4 m. This suggests a structural reorientation of the EU billet import basket from specialised high-carbon grades toward broader flat-product feedstock.

Conclusion

The decade 2015–2025 was one of fundamental reshaping for the EU's carbon steel billet market. Imports collapsed in absolute terms — losing nearly three-quarters of their volume — while the trade deficit shrank from €288.5 m to €43.5 m. Yet this headline improvement masks a deeper fragility: domestic production declined by 23.6% in volume and net import reliance more than doubled to 27.3%, meaning the EU's reduced import bill reflects not strength but a smaller and more exposed market.

Geopolitically, the supplier landscape was completely redrawn. Brexit and the decarbonisation of UK steelmaking removed the EU's largest traditional source; sanctions eliminated Russia; and China filled the vacuum, rising to become the dominant bilateral supplier by 2025. This concentration shift — from one trusted ally to a systemic rival — carries significant strategic implications, particularly as the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) begins to reshape the cost calculus for carbon-intensive imports.

Price-wise, the 2021–2022 steel super-cycle pushed billet prices to historic highs (up to €1,824/t on the export side), delivering windfall revenues to EU producers but also contributing to the broader inflationary shock. The partial price correction by 2025, combined with persistently elevated energy and carbon costs, leaves EU billet-makers in a structurally more competitive but more vulnerable position than at the start of the period. The coming years will test whether policy tools such as CBAM, the EU Steel and Metals Action Plan, and safeguard measures can reverse the erosion of domestic capacity — or whether the trend towards greater import reliance continues.