Ukraine's imports of bauxite in the first five months of the year fell 3.5% year on year to 1.91 million mt, the state customs service said Friday.
The value of bauxite imports increased 3.1% to $79.4 million, it said.
Bauxite is used to produce alumina.
Ukraine received 53.4% of bauxite imports from Guinea, 33.7% from Guyana and 12.7% from Brazil.
In May, Ukraine imported 390,000 mt of bauxite, down from 440,000 mt imported in May 2016, but up from 379,000 mt in April, the customs service said.
Ukraine's key importer of bauxite and alumina producer Mykolayiv Alumina Plant (MAP) produced 397,000 mt of alumina in the first quarter of 2017, up 7.3% from 370,000 mt produced in Q1 2016.
MAP is the second-largest producer of alumina in Europe and is owned by Russian aluminum giant Rusal.
It has an alumina production capacity of about 1.6 million mt/year and exports most of that to Russia.
MAP produced 1.51 million mt of alumina in 2016, up 2% from 1.48 million mt produced in 2015.
In 2016, Ukraine's imports of bauxite fell 8.1% year on year to 3.99 million mt, down from 4.34 million mt imported in 2015.
