Foreign flats producers remain active in offers and sales to Europe as the strong support from limited local allocation and higher prices in the EU still exists. Deals for hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized coils continue to be done even for extended lead times, but of course the mills who have material for shipment to sell with short lead times are in a more advantageous position since the stock levels in the EU are quite low.
Russia’s Severstal has more recently sold small volumes of HRC for June rolling to northern Europe at $1,045/mt FOB Baltic Sea, which nets back to around $1,080-1,085/mt delivered.
A sale from Turkey, according to sources, has recently been closed to Spain at $985-990/mt FOB for 15,000 mt, corresponding to around $1,050/mt CFR for August shipment. Asian suppliers, including suppliers from India, South Korea and Japan, have been in the market with $1,050/mt CFR offers for end-of-June and July shipments. Some of them may give discounts to $1,020/mt CFR, buyers say. Vietnam was offering $1,055-1,060/mt CFR last week to the Mediterranean region, with no deals reported.
Egypt is expected to announce new higher offers shortly, while the latest offers for last week were at $965/mt FOB with freight to southern Europe estimated at $25/mt minimum.
Overall, in the HRC segment, the market considers $1,020/mt CFR levels workable, but deals depend strongly on the buyer’s stock levels, the delivery time and alternative offers. Over the past week, the offer levels for HRC to EU have increased by at least $20-50/mt.
In the CRC and coated segment, Turkey has managed to sell good volumes to northern Europe at $1,280/mt CFR, up by around $50-60/mt since late March. In the meantime, India has been focused on selling to southern Europe at around $1,330-1,340/mt CFR, all base. Severstal has been benefitting from having May-June volumes to sell, with the latest deal prices set at $1,460/mt FOB and $20/mt delivery cost, SteelOrbis has learned.