Posted on 28 Mar 2019
Prices for hot-rolled coil in north-western Europe have remained flat since last week according to buyers polled by Kallanish.
“I don’t think prices will soften much from where we are, but increase announcements won’t be accepted either,” a service centre manager says, echoing a sentiment that has prevailed for some weeks now. An unchanged outlook is also reported by a distributor in Switzerland, “… after a slight uptick in February,” he says, and probably due to Italian rather than northern European influence.
An ex-works price of €490/tonne ($551/t) from domestic EU mills remains the reference point therefore. “We would like it to go higher,” says a trader who does business in Benelux, “… so that people would be again interested in imported product.”
Offers from overseas are sparse however, “… and traders have adjusted to that – I have not received many offers from them recently,” the SSC manager says. He also expresses some reticence about the price increases reported in markets further east, such as Turkey, Russia and Vietnam. “I can’t share the euphoria they had,” he says and notes that prices there now seem to be turning downward.
Regarding the German market, he says that “… some customers that come regularly every six weeks tell me they have still material left from last time.”
