Spanish auto industry remains weak despite post-summer recovery
Spain’s car industry saw activity rise sharply after a poor performance in the summer, Kallanish notes. However, the sector remains stagnant compared to last year.
According to the country’s automotive association, Asociación Nacional de Fabricantes de Automóviles y Camiones (Anfac), output in September was 205,418 units, compared to just 75,434 vehicles in August. This volume, however, was 2.4% less than the same month in 2023. Of the total, 75.1% were gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles.
Nine-month production amounted to 1.79 million units, a decrease of 1.6% compared to January-September last year.
“Vehicle production merely reflects current market demand,” says Anfac general director José López-Tafall. “Our factories are following the trend of a stagnant market, both in Europe and Spain, conditioned by the delicate situation of the main markets and export destinations such as Germany and France.”
Spanish vehicle exports rose in September. Shipments were at 185,327 units, compared to 77,038 units in the previous month but 3.6% lower than a year ago.
European markets had a 92.7% share in Spanish deliveries in September, 0.3 percentage points less on-month but 3.4pp higher on-year. Nine-month exports slipped 2.8% over the same period in 2023 to 1.59 million vehicles, Anfac data show.
Todor Kirkov Bulgaria
Thyssenkrupp launches AI solution for sheets, blanks
Thyssenkrupp Materials Services has developed an AI platform that digitises the nesting process – the intelligent placement of blanks on sheet metal – and the pricing process, Kallanish learns.
The platform is called smart.processing and is integrated into the new online shop of Max Cochius, an associated company of thyssenkrupp Schulte, and a leading metal distribution provider in Germany. Max Cochius customers can now purchase material in any desired free-form 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from anywhere. By placing the blanks in the best way, smart.processing minimises material consumption and therefore costs, tk Materials claims.
According to the company, telephone inquiries as well as manual price calculations for blanks and quotes are still common in materials distribution. The smart.processing AI platform ensures that customers can now get prices for their blanks in seconds and complete the purchase online. The complexity of the shape is no obstacle to the automated price calculation: Any shape is possible, from tubes and sheets to fully personalised free-forms.
Christian Koehl Germany
Another Polish steel firm eyes stock exchange delisting
Polish pipemaker Ferrum has applied to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority for approval to delist from the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Kallanish notes.
The firm, listed since 1997, did not provide a reason for the move.
In the first half of 2024 it saw own-produced pipe sales fall 12% on-year to 41,900 tonnes. However, overall product sales, including traded products, rose 5,000t to 54,800t. Revenue at sell fabricator subsidiary ZKS Ferrum surged 81% to PLN 59.5 million ($14.8m).
Consolidated H1 revenue rose 15% to PLN 356.6m but net loss deepened almost five-fold to PLN 1.9m.
Bydgoszcz-based steel distributor Drozapol-Profil also applied for approval to delist earlier this month. Major Polish distributor Konsorcjum Stali delisted in 2020.
Adam Smith Poland
NLMK Verona builds EAF, Clabecq upgrades plate technology
NLMK’s Italian facility in Verona is to build a new electric arc furnace for slab production, scheduled to be commissioned in 2027, a company representative confirms to Kallanish.
The new EAF production process is expected to ensure minimal environmental impact while facilitating the production of green steel slab. The steelmaker is simultaneously executing a project to electrify its existing gas-powered equipment. Verona already produces green slab thanks to the existing EAF that supplies half of the mills’ plate production.
The site’s revenue is anticipated to rise by 50% as a result of the investment, from €400 million ($432.11) to roughly €600m. In 2023, NLMK Verona achieved a turnover of €413m. It has an annual capacity of 450,000 tonnes and employs 310 people. It sells 75% of its production domestically while also exporting to markets in Asia, North America, and other EU countries. The Verona facility is part of the NLMK Europe plate division together with NLMK Clabecq in Belgium and Denmark’s NLMK DanSteel.
This month, NLMK Clabecq is launching an enhanced process technology called “InThinity”, designed to produce thin plate with tight thickness tolerances. Clabecq is now able to produce high-precision plate across thicknesses of up to 15mm.
This is the result of a revamp of the finishing mill completed in 2023. The investment included the upgrade of the Hydraulic Gauge Control (HGC), advanced flatness management, the replacement of the primary and the secondary descaler, now operating at 250 and 130 bars, and the creation of four independent rolling stands that allow for precise adjustments during production. These guarantee a uniform thickness throughout the plate while simultaneously enhancing flatness.
“This technology ensures that high precision is embedded in every plate as a standard offering, strengthening our position as a supplier of premium steel products and helping manufacturers achieve better performance in their operations,” chief commercial officer of NLMK Europe Plate, Peter Selbach, says in a note sent to Kallanish.
InThinity guarantees thickness tolerances that exceed industry standards. “For thicknesses between 3mm and 5mm, tolerances are reduced from 1mm according to EN 10029 to 0.6mm with InThinity, and further to a guaranteed 0.4mm with InThinity+,” the note concludes.
With an annual capacity of 750,000t, NLMK Clabecq produces steel plate ranging from 3 to 120mm thicknesses for the construction, shipbuilding, energy, transport, yellow goods, and mining sectors.
Natalia Capra France
Slow trading weighs on Southern European steel longs market
Fastmarkets price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) domestic, exw Italy was €560-580 ($604-626) per tonne on Wednesday, down by €10 per tonne from €570-590 per tonne week on week.
Market participants attributed the downward price movement to weak activity in the Italian rebar market.
“Demand is not so good, bad weather is slowing building sites, so customers have to destock before buying new materials,” a buyer source said.
“Mills are trying to increase the rebar price, but low demand makes it difficult to invert the price trend,” he added.
“There is very little news. The market is very calm, but we think the price floor has been reached,” a second buyer source said.
Meanwhile, export offers from Italy were reported at $550-580 per tonne FOB Switzerland and France, sources said.
Meanwhile, Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, delivered, Spain was €605-610 per tonne on Wednesday, stable week on week.
Market participants reported unchanged market conditions in the Spanish rebar market.
“Prices are stable, and consumption is still weak,” a producer source in the region said.
“The market is unchanged, and prices are stable. There is no buying of imported stock because the quota is full for the fourth quarter. Rumors are there is a lot of rebar imports arriving to European ports so there will be plenty of material before new quota opens on January 1,” a producer source said.
Southern European wire rod
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel wire rod (mesh quality), domestic, delivered Southern Europe was €600-630 per tonne on Wednesday, widening up by €10 on the high end of the range week on week.
Published by: India-Inés Levy
European steel HRC prices broadly flat; sentiment mixed
European producers have been pushing for higher HRC prices since the beginning of October, citing rising production costs and squeezed margins, but so far their bullish moves have only brought some stabilization.
“The market fundamentals remain weak,” a buyer source in Northern Europe said. “[HRC] prices are still under pressure and, because of that, most buyers are in wait-and-see mode. The price of €590 [$636 per tonne] that ArcelorMittal announced a couple of weeks ago isn’t realistic now.”
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at €549.38 per tonne on Thursday, down by only €0.62 per tonne from €550.00 per tonne the previous day.
The index was down by €5.91 per tonne week on week and by €3.33 per tonne month on month.
In Northern Europe, offers of coil for November-December delivery were reported at €550-570 per tonne ex-works, with €540 per tonne ex-works said to be achievable for larger volumes.
For January-delivery coil, some suppliers voiced price ideas at €580-600 per tonne ex-works, but this was not considered workable in the spot market at the moment.
“European mills are not actively offering [HRC] for deliveries next year [2025] yet. The market is not strong enough to accept an increase,” a second buyer said. “Until the automotive industry improves, we will not see any positive change [in the price of HRC]. All car sales figures for September in the main countries [of Europe] are negative, so I don’t think anything will happen.”
Slow real demand from key end-user sectors, especially the automotive industry, was the major obstacle for a sustainable price rebound, market sources said.
“Automotive [original equipment manufacturers] have put pressure on [steel] mills to get extra discounts for [long-term contracts] for next year,” a third market source said. “Some [steel service centers] have given in and reduced contract prices for this year already.”
Several market sources suggested that European mills might start to reduce steel output in November-December, in an attempt to balance demand and supply and in the hope to achieve higher prices in spot sales in the first quarter of 2025.
“European mills have produced enough [crude steel] to get free carbon credits for the next year. So reducing output in an oversupplied market would be a logical step,” a trading source in Germany said.
Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Italy at €546.25 per tonne on Thursday, down by €2.13 per tonne from €548.38 per tonne the previous day.
The Italian index was down by €5.63 per tonne week on week and by €6.25 per tonne month on month.
Suppliers in Italy were offering December/January-delivery HRC at €570-580 per tonne delivered, which would net back to €560-570 per tonne ex-works, with possible discounts of no more than €10 per tonne, Fastmarkets understands.
Buyers’ ideas of tradeable values were lower, however, at €540-560 per tonne delivered (€530-550 per tonne ex-works).
Market sources suggested that November lead times were still available from some suppliers.
“[HRC] sales are slow. Lack of imports helps, but with no real demand there is no chance to increase prices,” a buyer in Italy said.
Meanwhile, the market for imported HRC was also quiet, with offer prices far above the level that European buyers would prefer to pay, market sources said.
Notably, November-shipment HRC from Turkey was offered at €580-590 per tonne CFR to Italy, including anti-dumping duty.
From Asia, offers were reported at €550-570 per tonne CFR to Italy.
“Import [HRC] offers are not workable [because they are] too close to domestic prices [in Italy],” a trading source in the country said. “Besides, most buyers are afraid of provisional anti-dumping duties against certain origins to be made by the EU in December.” These were expected to affect materials from India, Vietnam, Japan and Egypt.
Green Steel
Demand for green steel across Europe remained limited, due to significantly high premiums for such materials, and a lack of the regulation in the industry that would stimulate buyers to “go green,” market sources said.
European flat steel suppliers continued to offer steel with Scope 1, Scope 2 and upstream Scope 3 emissions below 0.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per tonne of steel at a premium of €200-350 per tonne.
Market sources said that such prices could be achieved in long-term contracts.
Achievable prices for similar material in the spot market were reported by buyer sources at a premium of €50-100 per tonne during the assessment week.
Market sources reported a bid for 20 tonnes of HR flat steel, carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, at €70 per tonne. A supplier source said that its price idea for such an order would be no lower than €100 per tonne.
As a result, Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of the green steel, domestic, flat-rolled, differential to HRC index, exw Northern Europe was €100-200 per tonne on Thursday, unchanged week on week.
Published by: Julia Bolotova
Germany: September steel product sales edge up 0.8% on year
German steel product sales edged up 0.8% year on year in September to 785,553 mt, which was down 2% month on month, data from German steel stockholders’ association Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel (BDS) showed Oct. 24.
The majority, or 58.9%, of the sales, were from the flat product category at 462,555 mt, down 6.1% year on year and falling 5.1% month on month, while long sales rose 9% on the year and 2.9% month on month to 245,945 mt, the data showed.
January-September sales totaled 7.4 million mt, just 0.1% lower on the year, with flat sales down 3.4% to 4.5 million mt and long sales up 2.2% to 2.2 million mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic HRC prices in Northern Europe at Eur555/mt ex-works Ruhr Oct. 23, down 20% since the start of 2024.
Meanwhile, stocks of German steel products totaled 1.9 million mt in September, slipping 0.5% year on year and down 0.5% month on month, the BDS data showed.
Flat products made up 66.6% of total inventories in September at 1.3 million mt, which was 1.8% higher on the year and up 0.8% on the month.
Long products stocks totaled 600,974 mt in September, or 31.5% of the total inventory, dropping 5.1% year on year and down 2.9% from August.
EU coil price recovery remains challenging: EuroBLECH 2024
The recovery of coil prices in northwestern Europe is showing only limited momentum, as industrial demand remains flat, as it has been for months, defying mills’ attempts to hike values.
At this week’s Euroblech fair in Hanover, Kallanish heard from buyers that ArcelorMittal “said it very clearly” that it is seeking €40/tonne ($44) higher transaction prices and intends to enforce this. This announcement has been making the rounds for three weeks already, with the market leader targeting a price of €590/t ($637) ex-works for hot rolled coil in Europe.
It is, however, still being undercut even by mill-owned service centres. One buyer spoke of a deal done one week ago, when he still bought hot-rolled sheet at a finished price which, deducting cutting and services, hints at a HRC price of slightly below €550/t.
However, he also said mills are now acting more strictly, and returning orders that were placed at the old offer prices. Whether they succeed remains to be seen. Another buyer from a big distributors said prices of €600/t and above for HRC have also been touted. “That’s where they [mills] are trying to bring prices to for deliveries in the first quarter of 2025; the fourth quarter is basically closed now, except for maybe some leftover tonnages,” he noted.
One Dutch buyer told of reports of an unofficial €70-80 hike attempt, which he finds unrealistic. He hoped that mill can at least assert an increase by €20, giving €575/t as a price he found realistic to expect by the end of this year.
As the distributor’s buyer words it, “there is some movement in prices. But none in demand.”
Christian Koehl Germany