Russia’s Severstal has remained focused on hot rolled coil (HRC) sales to Europe, where demand has been positive while stocks and local market availability has been low. As a result, the producer has managed to fix a sizeable increase in its export prices and to trade at $620/mt FOB for big coils and at $610/mt FOB for small coils. Over a week ago, the producer was selling big coils at $560/mt FOB, as SteelOrbis reported earlier.
The company is in the market to sell for January production, while the majority of other ex-CIS mills are selling for February. It is worth mentioning that Severstal will have a lower allocation to sell for January, taking into account the gradual increase of the utilization of its new pickling line.
In addition, Severstal has restarted offering slabs and the price has been set at $540/mt FOB Baltic Sea. The January production volumes are to be sold to traditional EU customers, SteelOrbis understands. Overall, ex-CIS slab prices from the Black Sea region are estimated at $530-545/mt FOB.