After several months of steady price growth seen in the cold rolled coil (CRC) and hot dip galvanized (HDG) segments in Europe, this week both official offers from mills and tradable prices have dropped in the region given the pressure coming from the hot rolled coil (HRC) segment, while lower import prices have resulted in new deals, especially for CRC.
Specifically, in the domestic CRC market, in the EU, tradable prices have dropped to €820-850/mt ex-works, versus €840-860/mt ex-works last week, with the lower end of the range corresponding to offers in Italy at €820-830/mt levels, and the higher end corresponding to offers at €830-850/mt in northern Europe, both ex-works. At the same time, official offers from European mills have decreased as well, dropping by around €20/mt on average week on week to €840-870/mt ex-works, depending on the supplier.
Meanwhile, foreign CRC suppliers, especially those from Asia, in particular from Vietnam, Japan, India, Taiwan and South Korea, have decreased their offers by around €10-15/mt over the past week to €740-750/mt CFR. Thus, given the decline, more deals have been reported in southern Europe, including a few deals for ex-India and ex-Japan CRC for around 10,000 mt each at €740-750/mt CFR, while a 5,000 mt batch of ex-South Korea CRC has been booked at €745/mt CFR, according to sources.
At the same time, tradable local prices for HDG have been estimated at €860-870/mt ex-works, both in Italy and northern Europe, mainly the same as last week. However, offers from Italian mills have dropped by €10/mt on the higher end of the range week on week to €870-880/mt ex-works, while offers from northern European mills have been estimated at €880-905/mt ex-works, down €15/mt on the higher end week on week. Unlike the CRC segment, import offers for HDG have been rare, with offers for ex-Vietnam HDG Z100-120 heard at €815-820/mt CFR, against €820-850/mt CFR last week.
