The mood in the European HRC market has remained rather pessimistic, affected by still slow demand and, although most mills have kept their official offers stable at high levels in anticipation of long-term contracts with the automotive sector for the second half of the year, tradable prices do not exceed €640/mt ex-works for July delivery, both in Italy and northern Europe. In the import segment, business activity has remained slow, while most offers from traders have moved sideways.
This week, official offers from mills in Italy and northern Europe have been maintained at €660/mt ex-works, the same as last week, while tradable prices in new deals have been reported at €630-640/mt ex-works for July delivery. “Mills’ attempts to achieve higher prices have failed. We see a stable market trend for several weeks. It will be hard for them [mills] to go higher as demand shows no signs of improvement, while service centers and distributors are struggling to increase their downstream prices,” a market insider told SteelOrbis.
“Maybe there will be more restocking in the second half of June, but still we doubt people will book big volumes,” another source said.
In the meantime, import offers have not been very appealing this week, because of a combination of slow demand and most import prices remaining stable at high levels and even showing some increase as suppliers are unwilling to provide discounts. In particular, offers for import HRC from Asia via traders have remained at €600-620/mt CFR, the same as last week. Offers for ex-Vietnam HRC have been heard at €620-625/mt CFR southern Europe through traders, up by €10-20/mt week on week. Besides, following several deals signed at €620/mt CFR Spain earlier this week, suppliers from Japan have stopped offering. At the same time, according to sources, suppliers from Taiwan have made attempts to increase their offers to $665-675/mt CFR, up by $10-15/mt week on week, which translates to around €613-618/mt CFR, though these offers are considered “too high for the market”.
Offers from India have been heard at around €600-610/mt CFR southern Europe, mainly the same as last week, but no deals have been reported so far. “Big Indian mills currently have maintenance works and lower availability, which means they can support local prices and have reduced volumes for export,” a trader in Spain told SteelOrbis.
