The mood in the European market for hot-rolled steel remained pessimistic on Thursday, June 19, with limited demand and import supply continuing to exert pressure.
The official offer from factories in Northern Europe still came in at €600-620 ($634-656) per ton on a factory-free basis and slightly lower, although working prices were estimated in the range of €580-600 per ton of Ex-work.
Trading activity has been generally subdued in recent days with Germany and Austria celebrating the religious feast of Corpus Christi on June 19th, making the market particularly quiet that day.
The few that were present in the market were bearish expectations.
"Mills in Northern Europe are trying to find orders worth 600 per tonne on factory-free terms, so it's only a matter of time until we see €580-585 per tonne on factory-free terms in offers, but I doubt this will be the end of the downward spiral," one trader said.
Fastmarkets’ calculation of the daily steel index HRC, domestic, pickup of Northern Europe, €590.00 ($675.93) per ton, June 19, decreased by €3.33 per ton from €593.33 per ton on Wednesday.
In Italy, official HRC offers sounded at €570-580 per ton on a free-of-charge basis, with €565-575 per ton of ex-work subject to discussion, according to one seller, and offers of a lower €560 per ton of ex-work.
Fastmarkets daily hot-rolled steel coil index, domestic, franco-based in Italy, was calculated at €568.40 per tonne on Thursday, up from €571.88 per tonne on Wednesday.
In imports, the Indonesian HRC was quoted at €470-480 per ton CFR Italy.
Despite weak demand and market uncertainty, some market sources said that the Indonesian HRC could be concluded as low as €460-470 per ton CFR.
The Algerian coil was available at prices below €500 per ton CFR of Italy for July–August shipment. Vietnamese offers for the material were submitted at a price of 510 euros per ton CFR, while Indian and Turkish offers were submitted at a price of 530-540 euros per ton, including Turkish duty.
Some market sources reported that Turkish and Indian offers were priced at 515 euros per tonne with payment of duty and CFR, respectively, but this could not be confirmed at the time of publication.
Vlada Novokreschenova
Fastmarkets.com
