European HRC prices hold steady amid summer slowdown
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Northern Europe, at €622.08 ($678.70) per tonne on Monday, up by €1.58 per tonne from €620.50 per tonne on August 2.
The index was down by €1.67 per tonne week on week and by €8.92 per tonne month on month.
Mills in Northern Europe were heard offering September-delivery HRC at €620-640 per tonne ex-works, with some suppliers even offering the material at €610-620 per tonne ex-works, Fastmarkets heard.
Trade sources estimated the workable market level at €600-630 per tonne ex-works.
According to producer sources, a degree of price rebound could be seen in September. This would be supported by the comparatively low stocks across the entire supply chain, combined with limited imports due to the new European safeguard measures.
But another producer source was skeptical about how sustainable such a rebound could be, because of the persistently slow real demand.
A buyer source was even more pessimistic, saying that “there will not be a price rebound any time soon.”
In Southern Europe, meanwhile, Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Italy, at €620 per tonne on Monday, down by €0.63 per tonne from €620.63 per tonne on Friday.
The index was unchanged week on week but down by €4.10 per tonne month on month.
“The market is dead,” a buyer source told Fastmarkets. Producers in Italy have started summer maintenance work and were expected to come back to the market with fresh offers at the end of August, Fastmarkets heard.
The most recent offers heard at the end of July were at €640-650 per tonne delivered, which would net back to €630-640 per tonne ex-works.
But buyer sources estimated the workable market level at €620 per tonne ex-works.
In terms of imports, last week, offers from Turkey were heard at €570-590 per tonne CFR, including anti-dumping duty.
A Japanese offer was head at €580 per tonne CFR to Southern Europe, for October-shipment HRC.
Vietnamese HRC was offered at €560-570 per tonne CFR. For large volumes, offers were heard at €540 per tonne CFR to some regions.
“Currently, we see that customers are hesitating to buy [such material] due to the possible anti-dumping investigation against imports from ‘other countries’,” a buyer source told Fastmarkets.
The European Commission has received a complaint asking for an anti-dumping investigation to be launched into imports of steel hot-rolled coil from Vietnam.
According to the buyer source, similar investigations are possible for other origins as well.
Published by: Darina Kahramanova
Liberty to install two EAFs in transformation of Dunaujvaros mill in Hungary
Liberty Steel will equip its Liberty Dunaujvaros, previously known as Dunaferr, with two electric arc furnaces, rather than just one as planned previously, almost doubling the Hungarian plant’s capacity as it is transformed into a low carbon emitter, the Indian-owned company said Aug. 5.
Liberty also said its technology partner CISDI, a Chinese state-owned company offering engineering, procurement and construction services to the steel industry, had received preliminary financial backing from China’s Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) to carry out the Dunaujvaros mill’s transformation, paving the way to finalize the project’s capital structure.
In May, Liberty and CISDI signed an agreement to finalize the feasibility study for the project, after having in September 2023 signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hungarian government agreeing in principle to re-equip the metallurgical coal-based plant with electric arc furnace technology.
Under the agreement in principle between CISDI and Sinosure, Sinosure will provide credit insurance backing the Eur1.3 billion investment in the financing, export and installation at Liberty Dunaujvaros of two EAFs with 1.5 million mt/year capacity each.
The two EAFs will replace coal-based steelmaking operations and together with the upgraded secondary metallurgy units will recycle ferrous scrap and direct reduced iron producing slabs to be further processed into hot-rolled coils, with the whole cycle emitting 80% less CO2 compared with the mill’s existing blast furnace-based production units, which can produce up to 1.2 million mt/year of liquid iron and 1.6 million mt/year of steel.
Liberty already ended coke production at the Dunaujvaros site when in mid-June it started to close its two coke oven batteries, citing their loss-making operations due to the oversupplied market. The iron smelting furnaces at the steelworks remain idle with only the rolling mills running.
The Eur1.3 billion investment package will also include an upgrade to existing hot rolling and galvanizing operations and the installation of some new lines to cater for defense and automotive applications.
“The plant will incorporate the very latest electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, vacuum degassing, slab caster and AI control systems from CISDI to bring it to a world beating level of efficiency,” CISDI’s Chairman Xiao Peng said in a statement.
The specifications of plant will be finalized once the partners complete the project’s technical and feasibility studies.
The cooperation between Liberty Dunaujvaros and CISDI underlines the growing relationship between China and Hungary, and shows significant benefits of investment in sustainable steelmaking technologies, according to Sinosure representative He Zhigang.
Auto market can afford green-steel conversion cost: study
Transport & Environment (T&E), a trans-European organisation campaigning for emission-free transportation and traffic, says the automotive industry can become the lead market for low-carbon steel production in Europe if lawmakers set requirements.
If carmakers were to switch 40% of their steel use to green steel (with less than 400kg of CO2 emissions per tonne), it would add just €57 ($63) to the sticker price of an electric vehicle. This analysis by T&E is based on a new study by consultancy Ricardo titled “The use of green steel in the automotive industry.”
By 2024, switching to 100% green steel would cost only €8 – compared with using conventional steel – due to CO2 pricing as well as the falling costs of green steel production. But securing the billions of euros in investment needed for low-carbon steel production will be highly dependent on having a reliable offtake market for producers, the organisation notes.
The automotive sector is very well positioned to create this demand as it currently consumes 17% of steel in the EU, Kallanish learns from T&E. The organisation calls on lawmakers to help create a lead market for green steel in Europe by setting targets for carmakers to use an increasing amount of it in new cars from 2030.
“For less than a tyre change, Europe can build a green steel industry,” says Alex Keynes, cars policy manager at T&E. “The extra cost will be negligible and in time it will be cheaper than conventional steel. But we first need lawmakers to kick start the shift to low-carbon steel in the automotive industry.”
Christian Koehl Germany
