Ex-CIS hot rolled coil (HRC) export activity has been normal lately with CIS-based mills finding it somewhat challenging to convince buyers, but still able to sell some decent volumes.
In the Black Sea region, Ukraine’s Metinvest has decreased its HRC offers for Turkey by $10/mt since the end of last week to $930-940/mt CFR depending on the coil weight. This week, the supplier sold around 10,000 mt of small coils at the lower end of the range to Turkish customers. The freight is estimated at around $30-35/mt to Turkey. In addition, small lots have been sold by the company to North Africa at around $920-930/mt FOB, SteelOrbis has learned.
Russia’s MMK is still in the market with $950/mt CFR Turkey and not much business activity has been seen lately. However, the company has found buyers for lots of up to 20,000 mt of HRC in the US market at $1,070/mt FOB, sources report. NLMK, another Russia-based mill, has been offering $980/mt CFR Turkey after having sold medium lots at $960/mt CFR at the end of last week. The supplier may be targeting even higher levels or may be expected to leave the market for now, taking into account the recent accident at the main blast furnace. According to sources, NLMK will lose around 50,000-100,000 mt of September production pig iron due to repairs. Accordingly, this will also have an impact on its slab and HRC supply allocation.
In the Baltic region, Russia’s Severstal has decreased its sales prices over the past week but has managed to sell around 150,000-170,000 mt of HRC for September production since early this month. In particular, deals for medium lots were closed to Turkey at $890-900/mt FOB for small coils. In the EU, the price situation differs depending on the region. For the southern EU, small coils have been traded at $950-970/mt FOB and big ones at $1,040-1,070/mt FOB. In northern Europe, Severstal’s transaction prices have decreased by around $50/mt to $1,150-1,200/mt FOB for big coils and to $1,100-1,150/mt FOB for small coils.