Severstal, being one of the largest ex-Russia hot-rolled coil (HRC) exporters, has lowered its prices for the European region over the week, being under buyers’ pressure and general downturn in the local and global markets.
Supplier’s offers for the northern part of the EU are now standing at $940-960/mt FOB depending on the coil weight versus $1,040-1,080/mt FOB, seen early last week. According to sources, the main pressure is coming from the buyers from Germany and Poland as their bids have significantly decreased since the previous round of purchases. Severstal’s export price for the EU has decreased only by $10-20/mt over the week to $890-900/mt FOB.
In the meantime, taking into account weaker European market on which the mill is traditionally concentrated, Severstal is not excluding occasional sales to the more distant outlets, MENA region specifically. The HRC offer price for such buyers has remained unchanged over the week at $795-820/mt FOB and specifically North Africa is being targeted, SteelOrbis understands.
Severstal is about to close its October production sales and the total estimated export volume for the month is at around 250,000 mt. In November, the producer will have a traditional scheduled maintenance at both hot-rolling lines and the available allocation for export is expected to decrease to 120,000-150,000 mt, SteelOrbis.
