Although no official announcement has yet been made, unofficial reports in the media indicating that the European Commission will not apply any provisional antidumping (AD) duties on imports of hot rolled coil (HRC) from Brazil, Iran, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine have already negatively impacted activity in the European flat steel market.
Demand in the local European flat steel market is at very low levels due to the approach of the Easter holiday and the wait-and-see stance maintained by buyers ahead of the announcement of the provisional duties on April 7. Additionally, there is much talk in the market to the effect that European producers will have to reduce their flat steel prices if the European Commission decides not to enforce a duty for the imported products from the abovementioned countries. If no duty is imposed, the flat steel import volume in Europe is expected to rise and both domestic prices and demand are foreseen to weaken. The final determination in the investigation will be announced in October.
Over the past week, the local European flat steel market has moved sideways with hot rolled coil (HRC) prices still at €540-590/mt ($572-625/mt), cold rolled coil (CRC) prices at €640-700/mt ($678-742/mt) and hot dip galvanized (HDG) product offers at €640-700/mt ($678-742/mt), all ex-works. However, buyers are reluctant to conclude deals at these price ranges, while it is observed that activity in the market has nearly come to a halt. Meantime, HRC offers given to the EU from India and Turkey have continued to stand at $510-520/mt FOB and $525-530/mt FOB, respectively.
€1 = $1.06