Late on Friday, May 20, leading global steelmaker ArcelorMittal increased its coil offers across Europe for the fourth time this month, amid tight supply and good demand. Its new offers for HRC are at €1,170/mt ex-works, up €20/mt compared to last week. At the same time, ArcelorMittal's offers for CRC and HDG are both at €1,320/mt ex-works, also up €20/mt compared to the previous levels. Last week, the achievable prices for HRC in the market had reached €1,100-1,150/mt ex-works, as previously reported by SteelOrbis.
ArcelorMittal's latest increase is smaller than the previous ones, as recently the downturn in prices in China has put a dampener on sentiment in Europe and some European buyers have begun to adopt a wait-and-see approach, also due to the lack of clarity over a possible new tax on ex-China HRC exports and over the current EU safeguard on steel. However, according to rumors, the safeguard measures are to be extended for one year from the beginning of July, with an increase of five percent in duty-free quotas compared to the current quota volumes. According to some sources, ArcelorMittal, which has increased its offers each week during the current month, announced its latest increase at the very last minute on Friday and for a small amount, "just not to give an impression that the uptrend might have stopped." Meanwhile, sources have reported that recently foreign suppliers have seemed to be more eager to close deals due to the possibility of price corrections. In particular, for the first time in weeks, some traders have been willing to sell material at prices under €1,000/mt CFR EU from Asia. According to some sources, the re-emergence of imports could be seen as a signal that the market is peaking, though others said that supply shortages would keep prices strong both in Europe and internationally also in the second half of the year.