Waelzholz acquires Italian service centre
Waelzholz Group has acquired Tempracciaio S.r.l., headquartered in Milan, Italy, Kallanish learns from the German cold-rolling company.
Tempracciaio is a cold-rolled strip service centre that was founded in 1959, and has a throughput of roughly 3,000 tonnes/year. It specialises in non-tempered and hardened and tempered steel strip, and primarily supplies customers from the automotive and industrial applications segments. It has excellent access to the Italian market and strengthens Waelzholz’s position in this important sales region, says Waelzholz chief executive Heino Buddenberg.
Waelzholz already operates a location in Italy, Waelzholz Italia S.r.l., also based in Milan. The service centre primarily supplies local customers with stainless precision steel strip. Combining Tempracciaio’s wide range of cold rolled steel strip products with the stainless steel portfolio of the existing Waelzholz site is an advantageous fusion of expertise in the Italian market, Waelzholz finds.
“Over the medium term, we plan to merge the two service centres at Tempracciaio’s current location and continue to expand our operations there,” Buddenberg says.
Waelzhoz also reports that Matthias Gierse has retired from his position on the company’s executive board after 13 years. His areas of responsibility, procurement and sales, have transferred to Henrik Caspar Junius. The board now consists of Junius, ceo Buddenberg, and finance chief Holger Bierstedt.
Christian Koehl Germany
Gestamp sources Arvedi low-emission steel, to return scrap
Gestamp has signed an agreement with Italian steelmaker Acciaieria Arvedi for the purchase of low-emission steel for its components production, Kallanish learns from the Spanish supplier.
According to Gestamp, the partnership with Acciaieria Arvedi is a further step in the circular economy that the company is applying throughout its business model.
The company will use Arvedi’s carbon-neutral certified “ARVzero” steel produced from high-quality scrap. This is produced in an electric arc furnace using renewable energy.
“This partnership marks a step towards circularity and the goal of contributing, in the long term, to the Net-Zero car,” Gestamp. “The agreement allows us to return steel scrap generated during the production of stamping parts to Acciaieria Arvedi. This enables the Italian steelmaker to reprocess the high-quality scrap and reintroduce it into the production cycle, laying the groundwork for a circular economy,” the company adds.
The integration of scrap management into Gestamp’s business strategy allows for complete life-cycle traceability by integrating the collection, sorting, and reuse of quality scrap into its production chain.
Last year, Arvedi obtained the carbon neutrality certificate for its Cremona plant. This is after drastically reducing scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by investing in a new EAF supplied by Tenova and cutting the use of pig iron and other polluting raw materials.
The first carbon neutral certificate for Arvedi’s coils was will be issued for a large contract with Mercedes Benz that started in 2023. Chief executive Mario Caldonazzo revealed last year the steelmaker has demand for carbon-neutral steel and is in talks with other automakers.
Natalia Capra France , Todor Kirkov Bulgaria
UK electricity cost double Spain/France, says UK Steel
It is critical the next UK government tackles energy prices after new data showed the UK’s electricity wholesale price over the past three months is more than double the cost of French and Spanish electricity, says UK Steel.
With an impending switch to EAF steelmaking in the UK, it is expected the steel sector’s electricity consumption will roughly double, making electricity price “paramount”, UK Steel says in a note seen by Kallanish. Price data show that UK producers faced average wholesale prices of almost £66 ($84) per MWh in the past three months compared to France’s £27/MWh and Spain’s £28/MWh.
High electricity consumption can represent up to 180% of steel producers’ Gross Value Added (GVA) in the UK. The previous government introduced the British Industrial Supercharger in April, which reduced policy costs – such as renewable levies and the Capacity Market levy – and partly lowered network charges. “However, UK steelmakers still face substantially higher wholesale costs than key competitors and network charges ten times higher than in France,” UK Steel notes.
“We must not lose sight of how important electricity costs are in the move to green steel as we fully switch to electric arc furnace technology to secure steel for our nation,” says UK Steel energy and climate change policy manager Frank Aaskov. “The UK steel industry cannot continue to face electricity prices that are more than double what our main European competitors benefit from.”
“For the UK steel industry to prosper and deliver on its decarbonisation targets, a new Government must deliver the lowest electricity prices in Europe,” he adds.
Adam Smith Poland
ArcelorMittal Hamburg suffers steel spill
A spill of hot molten steel occurred in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday at ArcelorMittal Hamburg. No people were injured.
Local press reported on Wednesday that 80 tonnes of molten metal had leaked. In a statement sent to Kallanish upon request, the company confirms 140t leaked in a container. The company does not provide further details, including on the extent of potential interruption to production. It states that “the damage is under repair, so that we can resume production as soon as possible.”
ArcelorMittal Hamburg is Europe’s only direct reduced iron-based steelworks.
Christian Koehl Germany
Prices remain stable across Southern European steel longs market; mills prepare for summer closures
Prices in the Italian rebar market could rise before summer closures begin amid high energy costs and stable demand, sources told Fastmarkets.
Mills reported good order books and minimal surplus stock for the coming month.
“Long production stoppages and increased energy costs could push up prices in the month, especially as producers don’t have high unsold stocks to worry about this summer,” one producer source said.
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, delivered, Spain was €645-650 per tonne, stable week on week.
Southern European wire rod
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel wire rod (mesh quality), domestic, delivered Southern Europe was €625-640 per tonne on Wednesday, stable week on week.
European HRC prices flat; post-summer rebound put into question
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, at €631.13 ($679.62) per tonne on Thursday, up by €2.38 per tonne from €628.75 per tonne the day before
The index was up by €1.13 per tonne week on week but down by €3.29 per tonne month on month.
Trading remained quiet in the region, with both sellers and buyers trying to gauge the effects on the market of the new regime of EU safeguards that came into force at the start of this month.
“Mills and buyers are waiting to see what will happen… now that the new safeguards are in place,” a buyer in the Netherlands said. “But in general, suppliers [of HRC] are very quiet, and we expect them to come back with new, higher, prices next week.
“There was talk of base prices of €670 [per tonne ex-works] up to €690 [per tonne ex-works] for delivery in September,” the buyer added.
Buyer sources estimated the tradable value for HRC about €620-630 per tonne ex-works on Thursday. This was in line with the latest booking for July/August-delivery HRC.
Industry sources questioned the price rebound for September tonnages, claiming that end-user demand was insufficient to support any rise.
Some buyer sources, however, suggested that an increase in domestic prices could be partially accepted considering the effects of the safeguards on imports.
“New import tonnages will be subject to duty, which will push up import costs by €40-60 per tonne, offsetting the price advantage for imports. This might help European mills to get some uptick [in prices], but it’s not going to be easy,” a buyer in Germany said.
“The market is rather unpredictable at this stage. Demand is disappointing,” a second German buyer said.
Market sources pointed out that, in the secondary market, there was “a battle for tonnages” between distributors and steel service centers. Companies had high stocks of coil, a consequence of weaker-than-expected demand from the automotive industry in the first half of the year, and were becoming aggressive with prices in trying to get rid of the surplus.
In Southern Europe, Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Italy, at €623.75 per tonne on Thursday, up by €2.71 per tonne from €621.04 per tonne the day before.
But the index was down by €1.67 per tonne week on week and by €8.25 per tonne month on month.
In the Italy market, firm offers have been rare so far this week.
Local buyers estimated tradeable prices at €630-640 per tonne delivered, equivalent to €620-630 per tonne ex-works, which would be in line with trades for July/August-delivery coil.
For September deliveries, industry sources expected a €20-30 per tonne price increase.
The HRC import market in Europe remained quiet, with very few suppliers active.
“The new safeguard period has just started, [and it] looks like quotas are already being used by some suppliers, so the market is waiting,” a buyer in Italy said.
Offers of August/September-shipment coil were heard from Egypt, Indonesia and India at $610-650 per tonne CFR.
Published by: Julia Bolotova
HRC market digests effects of new EU safeguards on price; some suppliers already exceed Q3 quotas
News of changes to the European Union’s steel safeguard measures first appeared at the end of May and the European Commission confirmed the new measures a month later.
For the HRC market, the major change was to residual HRC quota access, adding a 15% cap per country over the total residual quota volumes introduced.
Market participants said they expected the changes to limit imports of HRC to the EU. Notably, a market source told Fastmarkets they expected Europe to see a reduction in import volumes of around 1.0-1.5 million tonnes under the “other countries category.”
Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and Egypt have previously been the principal suppliers of HRC to the EU under the “other countries” category, with Asian suppliers offering the most competitive prices, according to market participants in Europe.
Shortly after the announcement of the 15% cap on residual HRC quotas, some European steelmakers even made attempts to increase domestic prices in June, as Fastmarkets reported at the time.
Those attempts were largely unsuccessful, however, due to the lack of demand from key steel-using sectors, leaving domestic prices for HRC in Europe broadly flat for more than a month.
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at €628.75 ($674.79) per tonne on Wednesday, stable day on day.
The index was down by €0.63 per tonne week on week and by €4.58 per tonne month on month.
Industry sources now expect European producers to move to increase offers for September, in anticipation that a shortage of cheaper imports will support the rebound.
Yet market sources told Fastmarkets that this could be countered by low end-user demand that has continued to be the main driver of price direction.
Besides, the European market is still oversupplied meaning even a loss of 1-1.5 million tonnes of imports might not be enough to balance the markets.
So far, there was still no shortage of import material – on the contrary, stocks in ports were full with imported coil, and according to different estimations, it might take up to nine months to clear the stock of coil ordered before safeguard review went into effect.
Actual quota use
EU customs data as of July 3 shows that some countries have already significantly exceeded their allocation for the third quarter of 2024, and some suppliers used over half of the allocation just a few days after the new period began.
For tonnages that exceed the quota allowance, either the safeguard duty will need to be paid, or buyers can only custom clear tonnages that meet the quota and store the rest in the port. The second option would incur substantial storage costs, sources said.
Published by: Julia Bolotova
The new quota period in the EU has started as of July 1
Although the volumes awaiting at the ports are not cleared through customs yet, given the high volumes of imports waiting at the ports, for some products, the quota volumes have already been exhausted.
In the table below, you can see the products for which quotas have already been exhausted and also those for which more than 50 percent of quotas have been used up.
