Hot rolled coil (HRC) prices decreased slightly further in the EU domestic market in the past week, from €880-1,040/mt to €870-1,030/mt, both ex-works, as activities remained limited. More specifically, achievable spot prices are mostly in the €870-900/mt range in the Italian market and at €990-1,030/mt in northern Europe, all ex-works. Demand is expected to remain limited until the end of this year due to low consumption from the automotive industry owing to the lack of semiconductors globally, while other end-user sectors are performing better. As reported last week, demand has started to improve recently as distributors began to restock for the first quarter of 2022. At the same time, production and logistics costs kept to increase for European steelmakers, which is why they started telling their clients they are aiming at increasing their offers in the coming period. Today, steel giant ArcelorMittal has proposed a price of €1,080/mt for HRC for long-term contracts with large end-user sectors. However, buyers are not willing to accept such a price for the moment, given the recent weakness of the domestic market.
As for the import market, the general range of offers have increased a little according to sources, from €770-830/mt to €800-840/mt CFR southern Europe in the past week (duties included). However, buyers are not ready to order from the import market, given that they had to pay duties on the volumes arrived under the current quarter EU safeguard quota, and also given long delivery times and the uncertainty about the trend of local prices. Meanwhile, sources reported that a couple of European producers returned to offering HRC to the Turkish market and managed to sell around 30,000-40,000 mt in total at $910/mt CFR to three buyers. Some deals have been closed to Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia as well, at an unknown price though.