While ex-Russia hot rolled coil sellers are either sold out for August production on exports or remain absent in the market, offers from Ukraine have increased, supported by stronger slabs and overall more positive situation in the HRC segment, in Turkey specifically.
All three Russian mills are currently inactive on exports. NLMK, according to sources, has traded around 20,000-25,000 mt of HRC to Turkey recently at $430/mt CFR or around $415/mt FOB, in line with the deals of the previous round. Severstal has sold the remaining 30,000 mt to the northern EU at $435/mt FOB Baltic Sea, having managed to increase deal prices from $410-420/mt FOB at the beginning of the sales for August production. In this round the supplier has not been under pressure to sell far beyond the European markets, taking into account that Russia’s local demand has been strong. Same reason was behind the absence of MMK in terms of exports for August production as the supplier has been focused on sales to Russia and the CIS. Sources expect minor volumes might be still offered for end of August production, but it will depend on how the company manages the restart of mill 2500, which is scheduled to begin sometime next week, SteelOrbis understands.
As a result, Ukraine’s Metinvest is the only active CIS-based HRC exporter for now. Moreover, the supplier has increased its offers, supported the surge in its own slab sales prices and by overall improved situation in the HRC segment. In particular, latest offers to Turkey have been set at $435/mt CFR (around $420/mt FOB) for small coils versus $420/mt CFR voiced earlier this week. According to sources, the company does not offer big coils for now.