The impact of CBAM's autumn pricing is questionable, the consultant believes
The assumption that the mechanism for regulating carbon dioxide emissions at the border (CBAM) will deter importers from purchasing abroad, which will lead to a recovery in domestic prices in Europe, may be exaggerated, warns German consultant Andreas Schneider.
"The increasingly protectionist course of the EU is likely to lead to lower imports combined with CBAM," he admits. But "it is difficult to predict how quickly and to what extent this will affect the market."
The overall picture consists of international discrepancies in prices, exchange rates, demand in the EU and other EU import duties or quantitative restrictions, he believes.(0:3"Recent weeks, in particular, have shown that even high EU import duties can be at least partially offset by favorable exchange rates and significant price advantages offered by suppliers from third countries," he argues. He also warns that in the short term, imports may be ordered in excess of actual demand to avoid the cost of CBAM. "Therefore, it is difficult to predict to what extent CBAM will redirect part of the import demand to EU factories," he notes.
In the domestic European rolled products market, factories have raised prices rapidly twice in a row in an effort to prepare the market for higher transaction prices. Prices for hot-rolled coils have since risen slightly above the minimum level of 550 euros per ton (US$ 642), but have remained well below the 600 euros per ton provided by some plants.
According to the Dutch observer, prices for hot-dip galvanizing coils are also showing an increase. a slight increase, now the price is about 655 euros per ton for delivery in September-October.
According to the German buyer, the prices that were paid may be even higher, both for HDG and cold-rolled coils. He found that these two products cost almost the same price these days. "Although we are used to price differences of 10-20 euros[between CRC and HDG], nowadays you are unlikely to see such a difference," he tells[b]Kallanish[/b].
The Scandinavian source notes that he has not bought HDG recently, but supplies projects with large volumes of CRC, for which he pays less than a premium of 100 euros per ton in addition to HRC.
The Austrian manager also believes that CRC values are lower than HDG, but adds that he generally rejects discussions about fluctuations in the CRC/HDG premium. "This is a very relative indicator, depending on the structure of electricity costs at the enterprise at the moment," he says.
"I'm dealing with businesses that have maintained premium differences for years," he says, adding that the relativity of prices often depends only on how suppliers define