The current week has been quiet in all European scrap markets, including Germany and Poland. It is still too early to start monthly price negotiations and most steel mills do not have sufficiently strong production rates to allow high scrap inflows.
Recently, several producers across Europe have had to idle or interrupt production due to the ongoing crisis affecting the steel market, and Germany and Poland are not excluded. As reported by SteelOrbis, a subsidiary of Polish steelmaker Alchemia S.A., Rurexpol, had to close its pipe production plant in Częstochowa at the end of February due to their inability to compete in the steel market. At the same time, Riva Group’s production plant in Henningsdorf has been inactive for about three months.
Despite the slight improvement in the market mood - supported by the announcements of funds for defense and decarbonization in the European Union - and the timid recovery of scrap demand, the availability of the raw material remains limited and prices are stable at high levels. Some attempts to increase prices by German suppliers have been reported in the Italian scrap market in the past week. Increases of €5-10/mt were sought but these attempts were immediately abandoned as finished steel producers in Italy are no longer able to sustain increases in scrap prices.
In the local Polish scrap market, on the other hand, the latest sales prices have been reported at around €320/mt for the equivalent of E1 scrap, €335/mt for the equivalent of E3 scrap and around €350/mt for the equivalent of E8 scrap.
"They will start discussing new monthly negotiations next Monday," a source reported, adding, "This is a dead week."
The widespread opinion is that April will remain stable due to the Easter holidays, but another factor contributing to stability will be the wait-and-see stance that players are maintaining to understand what influence Trump's new tariffs will have on the European Union. As announced at Trump’s press conference on April 2, a 20 percent tariff will now be imposed on all European products entering the United States.