India exhausted its July-September quota for hot rolled coil (HRC) shipments on the first day of the third quarter, according to the data released by the European Commission.
The third quarter quota assigned to Indian suppliers amounted to 169,717 mt, while over 330,000 mt were awaiting allocation late last week, according to sources.
This means that large amounts will be subject to the 25 percent duty, although this had been expected by market players, and taken into consideration by Indian mills which had been willing to decrease their prices in the past weeks. Lots of volumes were booked at prices below €900/mt CFR Italy. Increased imports of ex-India HRC were the result of the persistent tight supply in the EU domestic market and also the lack of other competitive options, as Turkish suppliers have not only been subject to the EU safeguard, but they were also slapped with antidumping duties in January. As reported previously, rumour has it that the EU is preparing to launch an antidumping investigation into imported HRC of Indian origin. This has recently pushed EU buyers to take a pause from new bookings. Should this investigation become a reality, India's current focus on the Turkish market may continue as Indian suppliers may divert more exports to the country, increasing competition for local mills and also CIS-based suppliers, market sources believe.
According to EUROFER's data, ex-India hot rolled wide strip imports to the EU amounted to 1,093,572 mt in the January-April period this year, against the 565,550 mt imported in the January-April period 2020 and the 860,242 mt imported in the same period of 2019.
The latest data on EU steel import quota volumes are available on SteelOrbis EU Quota Tracking page.