Although demand has remained quite slow in the European HRC market, sentiment has remined cautiously positive this week, as mills are not accepting any requests from buyers for additional discounts, aiming for higher prices in the next round of sales. At the same time, higher offers for import HRC have been providing additional support to the bullish sentiments in the market, though the situation has remained sluggish in terms of sales.
More specifically, this week offers from European mills have settled at €650-670/mt ex-works for June delivery, with offers in Italy heard at €650-660/mt ex-works, up by €10/mt on the lower end of the range week on week, while offers from mills in northern Europe have been voiced at €650-670/mt ex-works, mainly the same as last week.
Meanwhile, workable prices in the Italian market have been estimated at €630-640/mt ex-works, against €630/mt ex-works last week. In the north, tradable prices have been assessed at €640/mt ex-works, though, according to sources, occasional deals for mainly small quantities have still been heard at €630/mt ex-works this week.
“Even though steel consumption is still quite slow, EU suppliers are relying on customers’ low stocks. Besides, there are almost no cheap import offers anymore, while those materials which can still be offered below €600/mt CFR are not attractive to buyers due to the safeguard quota risks and long lead times,” a European trader told SteelOrbis.
As for the import segment, most offers for ex-Asia HRC have been reported at €600-620/mt CFR, against €585-610/mt CFR last week. In particular, offers for ex-India HRC have been voiced in southern Europe at around $645-650/mt CFR, which translates to around €603-607/mt CFR, while the same material has been offered in northern Europe at around $650-660/mt CFR Antwerp (around €607-615/mt CFR). Offers from Vietnam have been heard at €600-620/mt CFR southern Europe, against €585-595/mt CFR last week. Besides, offers for ex-South Korea and ex-Japan HRC have been estimated at around €610-620/mt CFR, versus €605-610/mt CFR last week, though, according to market insiders, several offers for ex-Japan HRC have already been heard at €630/mt CFR Spain.
Offers for ex-Turkey HRC have been estimated at around $635-650/mt CFR without duty, which translates to around €593-607/mt CFR, though, according to a number of sources, offers at higher levels of $660/mt CFR (€616/mt) have also been heard in the market this week.
$1 = €0.93