Currently, Italian producers' domestic hot rolled coil (HRC) base prices are at €520-530/mt ($608-620/mt) ex-works, unchanged over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, producers' cold rolled coil (CRC) and hot dip galvanized (HDG) prices have decreased by €10/mt over the same period, to €595-605/mt ($696-708/mt) and €590-605/mt ($690-708/mt) respectively, all ex-works.
According to market sources, in the past week expectations of price increases have begun to be expressed in the market. For this reason, even those producers that were moderately aggressive in past weeks are now not so willing to sell and prefer to wait and see. Such expectations are supported by the presentiment that the safeguard investigation by the European Commission into steel imports will result in a tariff on the quotas above the average volumes that were imported in the last three years or so from different countries. If this scenario materializes, according to some sources there will be supply problems that will push prices up. As reported previously, the opening of the EU safeguard investigation has caused a reduction of import activities. Moreover, the trend of the euro-dollar exchange rate in recent days has undermined the competitiveness of import offers. Currently, import offers for ex-Turkey and ex-Egypt HRC are at around $600/mt FOB.
€1 = $1.17