EUROPE HRC WRAP: Domestic prices stable, sentiment still good

Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was calculated at €413.46 ($487.19) per tonne on August 7, up by €0.96 per tonne week on week and up by €10.33 per tonne month on month.

Friday’s index was based on “workable” prices heard at €410-420 per tonne ex-works and deals reported at €410-415 per tonne ex-works.

Official offers from Northern European producers were heard at €430-450 per tonne delivered. Such high offers indicated mills’ intention to increase prices, market sources said.

Fastmarkets’ latest weekly price assessment for steel HRC, domestic, exw Southern Europe, was $390-410 per tonne on August 5, narrowing downward from €390-400 per tonne on July 29 based on workable prices, deals and offers heard.

Although market sources did not expect significant price changes during August, due to the seasonally low market activity, they believed that prices would continue to rise in September, when both sellers and buyers return to the market looking for orders.

A lack of import offers and generally high prices for overseas material have been the main drivers behind the price recovery in the domestic Northern European market, participants said. In addition, market expectations of seasonal demand recovery after the summer were giving additional support to the domestic HRC price, sources said.

The low interest in imported HRC – because of long lead times and tougher European safeguard measures that came into force on July 1, 2020 – have supported domestic prices.

In addition, international HRC prices have been recovering quicker compared with those in Europe, making prices for non-EU material uncompetitive.

Turkish producers, key overseas suppliers of HRC to the EU, significantly increased their export prices over the week.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel HRC, export, fob main port Turkey, was $490-500 per tonne on August 7, rising from $430-450 per tonne on July 31.

Turkish producers were offering material at $490-500 per tonne fob and deals were made to Europe and North Africa at $490 per tonne fob.

Last week, the European Commission extended existing anti-dumping measures applied to corrosion-resistant steels from China to include imports of certain slightly modified corrosion-resistant steel products.