The Romanian flats market's long-standing negative trend has continued this week, contributing to poor sentiment. As a result of persistently poor demand and local economic obstacles, the sole Romanian producer has made the decision to keep reducing its flats prices. Meanwhile, local traders prefer to keep an eye on market developments to see how prices may fall in the coming days before making a decision on their own pricing.
Over the past week, prices for domestic origin hot rolled coil (HRC) in Romania have dropped from €680/mt ex-works from €760/mt ex-works and cold rolled coil (CRC) have fallen by €50/mt ex-works to €780/mt ex-works. Similarly, the mill's domestic market pricing for HDG has gone down by €70/mt ex-works from €810/mt ex-works and PGGI has fallen to €1,140/mt ex-works from €1,230/mt ex-works since last week.
“The market is extremely quiet market over here and unfortunately prices went down further,” a representative of the sole producer told SteelOrbis.
In contrast, despite the lack of sufficient business transactions during the week, Romanian flat steel traders have preferred to maintain their pricing.
This week, traders’ prices for hot rolled sheet (HRS) and cold rolled sheet (CRS) have remained stable at €800-840/mt ex-warehouse and €960-1,000/mt ex-warehouse, respectively.
Meanwhile, no fresh import offers have been made as Romanian buyers were silent owing to the pessimistic market mood, while Serbia reduced its HRC offers to €650/mt DAP from €780/mt DAP before.