Prices in the local European flat steel market prices have remained stable over the past week, standing at €420-460/mt ($470-515/mt) for hot rolled coil (HRC), at €530-560/mt ($594-627/mt) for cold rolled coil (CRC) and at €510-540/mt ($571-605/mt) for hot dip galvanized (HDG), all ex-works.
Market sources have told SteelOrbis that the price range could narrow during the coming days since southern Europe producers are trying to balance their prices with northern Europe producers’ prices which are currently about €10-20 /mt ($11-22/mt) higher. This is possible because of decent demand and a limited volume of offers (because of some technical problems at certain plants) and because of the absence of imports due to antidumping cases.
In the meantime, Italian distributors are facing difficulties with their profit margins since end-users are not accepting price increases. The total delay in applying price increases from production to distribution and from distribution to end-users is about 20-30 days. An improvement in this situation could be seen next week when demand from end-users is expected to increase.
€1 = $1.12