Russian hot rolled coils (HRC) producers remain optimistic regarding their sales for the remaining lots of April production and almost all May production, taking into account rather firm market fundamentals. The Turkish HRC market remains strong and the producers in the EU have recently increased their prices. Moreover, some sources believe the actively discussed Liberty crisis may further deepen the HRC availability issue in Europe.
Russia’s Severstal has hit a new high in its HRC export sales, supported by the recent price increase in Europe. The supplier has recently managed to sell around 5,000-10,000 mt at $835/mt FOB Baltic Sea to the northern EU for May production, up by $20-25/mt from the previous sales of around 20,000 mt. Severstal is being cautious in giving volumes to the export market, taking into account the expectation for local demand to improve. The latest prices from Russia’s MMK have been voiced at around $810/mt FOB with the potential to increase, specifically in offers and sales to Turkey. According to sources, NLMK has been offering $850/mt FOB for the remaining lots of April production, while somewhat lower levels may be available for May.
In the domestic market in Russia, most mills’ offers for April production are at $781/mt (RUB 69,000/mt) CPT Moscow, increasing by $23/mt (RUB 2,000/mt) over the past month. Business activity in the local market is reportedly decent and expected to improve further, partly due to seasonal factors and taking into account the mills’ policies to balance local and overseas sales. Market players are optimistic regarding the situation in the export segment, where even today prices are higher than the local prices in Russia. As a result, producers are expected to further increase their domestic HRC prices for May production by another $23-34/mt (RUB 2,000-3,000/mt), SteelOrbis understands.
Local prices in RUB include 20 percent VAT, while prices in US dollars do not.
$1 = 73.61 RUB