Year: 2026

European import prices for steel hot-rolled coil increased in the week to Wednesday March 25 amid limited availability and surging freight costs.

The escalation of the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran has affected import routes, especially from Asia, increasing freight costs. Meanwhile, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) remains a key factor pressuring import volumes, Fastmarkets understands.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, import, cfr main port Northern Europe was €608-685 ($704-794) per tonne on Wednesday, rising from €570-575 per tonne the previous week.

Offers from Turkey, including duties, were heard at €685 per tonne CFR, while other offers from Asian origins were reported within the range of €608-630 per tonne CFR.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, import, cfr main port Southern Europe was €640-690 per tonne, rising from €570-640 per tonne the previous week.

Offers from Turkey were heard at €640-655 per tonne CFR and offers from Algeria to Spain for June delivery were heard at €690-710 per tonne CFR.

The DDP assessments for HRC imported to Northern and Southern Europe also increased in the week to Wednesday.

Offers for imported HRC to Southern Europe, including CBAM-related costs, were reported at €740-775 per tonne DDP. Estimates were also heard at €720 per tonne DDP.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, import, ddp Southern Europe was €720-740 per tonne, up from €640-670 per tonne the previous week.

The corresponding price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, import, ddp Northern Europe was €720-740 per tonne, up from €650-670 per tonne in the previous assessment period.

The updated assessment is in line with estimates of workable levels also heard at €720-740 per tonne DDP.

 

Worthington Steel’s acquisition of German metals company Kloeckner & Co is “progressing well” and is expected to complete in the second half of 2026, chief executive officer, president and director Geoffrey Gilmore of the US-based steel processor said on Thursday March 26.

The voluntary public takeover offer had been at least two years in the making, Gilmore told Fastmarkets in an exclusive interview on January 16.

The merger would create the second-largest steel service center company in North America with more than $9.5 billion of combined revenue.

Although Kloeckner & Co is a German company, about 75% of its shipments are in North America, making it an attractive acquisition target, Gilmore said in January.

The transaction remains subject to the tender process and required regulatory approvals, Gilmore said, adding that he expects the deal to be completed in the second half of the year.

“We have submitted requests for regulatory approval in the required jurisdictions, and we are beginning to see approvals come through. Overall, the process is progressing well,” the CEO told investors on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, adding that the company has received “overwhelmingly positive” response from customers, suppliers and investors.

The German public company takeover process is “highly structured,” Gilmore shared on Thursday.

Kloeckner & Co, with approximately 110 locations across North America and Europe and product capabilities including carbon flat-roll steel (sheet and plate), electrical steel, aluminium, stainless steel and long products, was an attractive M&A target because it is a “highly complementary business” with “adjacent markets” to Worthington Steel’s operations, Gilmore told Fastmarkets.

Together, the combined company will have about 12,000 employees, Gilmore said.

 

European domestic prices for steel cold-rolled coil and hot-dipped galvanized coil increased in the week to Wednesday March 25, supported by prolonged limitations on imported materials and rising production costs, affecting local prices.

Despite real demand in Europe remaining relatively weak while buyers resist price increases, market participants saw a steady upward trend in prices with mills pushing higher offer levels across the region, Fastmarkets understands.

The escalation of the conflict between the US and Iran has had a profound effect on import routes, limiting the flow of steel to the block, especially from Asian origins.

This, paired with the introduction of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) at the start of the year, has badly affected import volumes.

Shifting geopolitical dynamics have also resulted in spikes in the costs of energy and raw materials, which have led European producers to increase prices, while freight and logistics have also been affected.

According to market sources, actual consumption has shown a downward trend in recent weeks, while market uncertainty, mainly driven by the situation in the Middle East, was also having an effect on domestic production.

In Northern Europe, domestic CRC and HDG prices increased in the week to March 25.

For domestic CRC, a sale was reported at €830 ($959) per tonne ex-works, while estimates of tradable levels were reported around €800-820 per tonne ex-works during the assessment period.

Heightened volatility in energy prices was expected to have a stronger effect on domestic CRC production, mainly due to the energy needs of the processes used by European mills, such as batch annealing.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel cold-rolled coil, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was €820-830 per tonne on Wednesday, narrowing upward from €800-830 per tonne the previous week.

Meanwhile, the weekly price assessment for steel hot-dipped galvanized coil, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was €820-830 per tonne, rising from €800-810 per tonne the previous week.

The new assessment aligned with some higher estimates of workable levels heard around €820-830 per tonne ex-works.

Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, prices for domestic CRC remained stable in the week to Wednesday.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel cold-rolled coil, domestic, exw Southern Europe, was €810-840 per tonne on Wednesday, unchanged week on week.

But domestic HDG levels in Southern Europe increased during the assessment period.

An offer of HDG was heard at €840 per tonne ex-works, while estimates of workable levels were heard within the range of €820-830 per tonne ex-works.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel hot-dipped galvanized coil, domestic, exw Southern Europe, was €820-840 per tonne on Wednesday, rising from €800-830 per tonne the previous week.

Import flows into Europe were still limited amid regulatory and geopolitical developments, with buyers increasingly turning toward domestic suppliers while imported materials become riskier to obtain.

Prices for imported CRC and HDG were unchanged during the week, for both CFR and DDP assessments.

Amid the difficult situation for importers, Asian suppliers were recently heard to be offering material on an FOB basis as a means to avoid fluctuations in transport-related costs. But no new offers or trading activity were reported during the assessment period.

 

The Rhine port of Kehl in southwestern Germany achieved an 14.6% increase of steel and scrap handled at the port to 3.364 million tonnes in 2025.

The category of iron and steel products has by far the biggest share of the tonnage handled, with 76% of the port’s total, Kallanish notes.

The port’s total handling volume for water vessels in the year of its 125th anniversary was 4.430mt, 6.8% higher than in 2024. This is the port’s second largest volume since the record was set in 2020.

Railway transport rose also, by 2.0%, to 2.7mt, with the combined volume of ships and railways reaching to 7.139mt, 5% higher than in 2024.

Kehl on the Rhine, near Strasbourg on the French side, is the location of rebar mill Badische Stahlwerke.

For steel and scrap, Kehl is the most important port in the Upper Rhine region, close to France and Switzerland, and arguably Germany’s biggest inland port outside the Ruhr region. The share of ships sailing under the Dutch flag is 74%, at the Kehl port with German ships accounting for 20%, according to the port authority.

 

Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel is to stop production at its Isbergues plant in France from June to September, amid worsening market conditions for grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), Kallanish notes.

The shutdown follows earlier production cuts at both Isbergues and the Germany-based Gelsenkirchen site, with the French facility operating at around 50% capacity since January. The latest measure comes amid an intensifying surge in GOES imports into Europe. Despite the stoppage, the company says customer supply will be maintained.

“In view of the ruinous flood of imports in the market for grain-oriented electrical steel, we see no alternative but to temporarily shut down our French site once again … We are faced with import prices that in some cases lie well below production costs in the EU. We therefore urgently need appropriate trade protection to establish fair competitive conditions for this strategically important product,” Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel chief executive Angelo di Martino says.

“This also concerns around 1,200 skilled jobs, which we aim to safeguard at our sites in Gelsenkirchen and Isbergues,” he adds. The company is in talks with the European Commission to implement effective safeguards measures, he notes.

EU GOES imports have tripled since 2022 and increased by a further 50% in 2025, now accounting for more than half of the bloc’s market, according to the steelmaker. This has led to a sharp decline in order intake and significant decrease in domestic consumption.

Despite the current pressure, long-term fundamentals remain positive. Global demand for grain-oriented electrical steel is expected to triple by 2050. Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel is one of only three European producers of GOES, used in transformers for power grids and renewable energy applications. Maintaining European GOES production is seen as strategic for energy security and the transition to low-carbon energy.

 

As part of its transformation towards climate-neutral steel production, thyssenkrupp Steel is upgrading the testing laboratory at its Duisburg-Schwelgern site to study iron ore feedstock for direct reduction.

The metallurgical laboratory in Schwelgern already has extensive testing capacity for traditional blast furnace feedstocks such as sinter, iron ore pellets, lump ore, and blast furnace coke. To meet the new requirements of hydrogen-based direct reduction, the existing laboratory is now being expanded, the company states.

While blast furnaces are characterised by CO-rich process gases and temperatures well above 1,000 degrees Celsius, the direct reduction process operates with hydrogen-rich gases at temperatures of around 1,000 degrees Celsius or lower.

The pellets and lump ore used must therefore be tested in accordance with ISO standards for direct reduction processes, tk Steel explains. The focus is on their stability under direct reduction conditions, Kallanish understands. Among other things, tests examine whether they tend to stick or agglomerate during reduction, how strongly they tend to break down during reduction, and how well they can be reduced.

The test atmosphere of the new test facilities is modelled on future operating conditions: while blast furnaces currently contain only about 2% hydrogen in the process gas, the direct reduction route is already being tested with around 45% hydrogen during natural gas operation, tk Steel notes.

The upgrade contract has been awarded to Heat & Power, which has already designed and built a pilot plant for sinter production at tk Steel. The contract has a value of €2.4 million ($2.8m).

 

Benteler group is pursuing further investment at its location in Paderborn, Germany, Kallanish hears from the maker of tubes and automotive components.

The group is lining up approximately €17 million (20m) for expansion of tube manufacturing at the Schloss Neuhaus plant in Paderborn. It is thereby responding to rising demand for seamless and welded steel tubes, particularly from the automotive industry, it says.

“With this investment, we are strategically expanding our capacities for seamless and cold-drawn tubes – especially for automotive applications such as airbag tubes and rotor shafts,” says Thomas Michels, chief operating officer of Benteler’s Steel/Tube division. He adds the expansion will increase production capacity at the site by around 15%.

The investment includes a completely new production line for drawn tubes with a drawbench, expanded heat treatment capacity, plus a combined straightening, testing, and sawing system. The line, to be commissioned at end-May, will be complemented by systems for quality control, preservation, and packaging,  In addition, capacities for sawing short tube sections will be expanded.

The expansion will create 30 new jobs at Schloss Neuhaus. Currently some 1,100 employees at the site make around 160,000 tonnes/year of tube, which equals roughly 250,000 tube units per day.

Benteler’s Steel/Tube division performed “significantly better” in 2025 than in the preceding year, improving its adjusted earnings to €162 million, up from €116m. Stable demand in the energy sector as well as positive momentum in the North American business for tubes for the oil and gas industry supported performance, Benteler notes.

Together with the much larger Automotive division, the group lifted its operating profit by 8% to €641m, on revenue that remained roughly on par year-on-year at €8.1 billion.

 

Steel for military defence, safety and protection is gaining in importance against the backdrop of warfare, especially in Ukraine, European representatives stated at the recent Zukunft Stahl conference, attended by Kallanish.

Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, Western Europe “sports an attitude that is more relaxed than I deem adequate,” said Matthias Puschnig, colonel at Germany’s armed forces, and representative of the Defence Ministry.

Puschnig made the comments during a panel focused on steel for safety, along with speakers from SSAB, Salzgitter AG and defence technology supplier Rheinmetall.

On the army’s requirement for steel, he said “the thinner it is, the lower the weight, the better.”

He cited SSAB ceo Johnny Sjöström, who remarked in his presentation that “speed matters in war”.

Sjöström gave the example of Finnish-made tanks that save several tonnes in weight, and reach a speed of 100km/hour.  He also noted that the capacities for thinner plate with the necessary microstructure are limited in Europe, and that “there is not a single army vehicle in Europe” without SSAB steel.

Meanwhile, Mirko Loos, vice president at Europe’s largest producer of military technology, Rheinmetall, underlined that his company will keep sourcing its steels domestically.

“We shun the risk of sourcing steel from far outside Europe,” he said. He noted that the technology is not an easy one, and that he had to reject approaches from makers of automotive parts trying to jump the line. “There is a wave building up, and many things are changing at present,” he said.

Another company increasing its activities in defence steels with several approvals received last year is Salzgitter, represented at the debate by Thorsten Gintaut, managing director of plate mill Grobblechwerke der Salzgitter.

In terms of volume and sales, defence makes only a one-digit percentage of the German steelmaker’s business, “and will remain a niche market”.

However, it is the one sector of application with tangible growth potential, “and we can participate in that – with plate, with components, and by means of external acquisition”.

At a separate event, Salzgitter ceo Gunnar Groebler said during the company’s annual press conference that he was astonished by the quick pace at which certain approvals for military purposes were granted last year.

For these activities, he said: “2026 for us will be a year of transition and test supplies; the volumes will follow in 2027.”

 

Trade cases are delivering results against record high Chinese steel exports but their effectiveness is being undermined by growing circumvention activity, the OECD Steel Committee concluded after its 99th session this week.

Although global steel demand is set to recover in 2026, except for China, meanwhile, the extent of the impact of the current conflict in the Middle East on global steel markets is highly uncertain.

In 2025, a total of 75 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations were initiated against China, and the stock of steel AD/CVD measures climbed higher.

However, significant transhipment activity has been identified between China and some Southeast Asian countries of steel subject to trade measures taken by OECD countries.

“Exporters are increasingly resorting to a widening range of circumvention techniques … including by slightly modifying the products, by investing in steel plants abroad to change the origin of the steel, and by exporting steel in the form of steel-intensive downstream products that are not subject to the trade measures,” the Committee notes in a statement seen by Kallanish.

Market-distorting subsidies also remain a challenge. The median Chinese firm received 15 times more subsidies relative to its asset size than a median firm elsewhere, compared to ten times more in previous years. Moreover, China’s steel subsidy rate has nearly doubled since 2019, the Committee continues.

“Capacity swap programmes to replace BF-BOF with EAF and other low-emission technologies are not delivering the expected net capacity reductions, as new low-emission capacity is being added without equivalent retirement of existing capacity,” it adds.

Excess capacity increased to 640 million tonnes in 2025, exceeding total OECD steel production by more than 200mt.

Meeting delegates welcomed Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity efforts to develop the key elements of a comprehensive framework for joint action by June 2026 and additional steps to help combat and address the problems associated with global excess capacity. These include enhanced monitoring of non-market policies and practices and building capabilities to enhance import monitoring and address circumvention.

 

The European Parliament voted in favor of implementing the trade agreement reached last year between the EU and the US, but with amendments contingent on Washington’s compliance.

In a plenary vote March 26, the EU assembly adopted by 417 votes in favor and 154 against, with 71 abstentions. MEPs approved conditional tariff reductions on US industrial goods, agricultural products and seafood, setting strict safeguards that could suspend the deal if Washington imposes new duties on EU exports.

The so-called suspension clause could be activated if the US “undermined the objectives of the deal, discriminated against EU economic operators, threatened member states’ territorial integrity, foreign and defense policies, or engaged in economic coercion”, as reported in the MEPs’ statement and underlined in the press conference.

The framework eliminates most tariffs on US industrial goods while granting preferential access for American farm products and seafood, following the July 2025 Turnberry agreement between US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Metals provisions

Under a “sunrise clause” introduced by members of the European Parliament, tariff preferences only take effect if the US reduces duties on EU products with steel and aluminum content below 50% to a maximum 15%. For products exceeding 50% steel and aluminum content, EU tariff preferences on US exports of steel, aluminum and derivative products would cease six months after the regulation’s implementation unless Washington cuts its tariffs to 15% or below.

In steel, the effects of the US tariffs on EU steel applied since March (25%) and June (50%) had a further destructive impact on the sector that was already hit by the effects of global steel overcapacity. According a report by Eurofer, the European steel association, the largest surpluses for EU finished steel exports in 2025 were recorded with the US at 165,000 mt per month, albeit much lower than 2024 when it stood at 219,000 mt/month.

Safeguard mechanism

The parliament strengthened suspension mechanisms allowing the European Commission to withdraw trade preferences if the US imposes additional tariffs exceeding the 15% ceiling or introduces new duties on EU goods. A safeguard provision enables suspension of new tariffs if US imports rise 10% or more for specific product groups, threatening EU industry.

The regulation expires March 31, 2028, requiring a new legislative proposal and impact assessment for extension. Rapporteur Bernd Lange said parliament would only support the deal with “very strong and clear safeguards” after full US compliance.

Energy trade

US and EU leaders also agreed to significantly boost energy trade as part of the deal discussions last summer. The EU pledged to purchase $750 billion in US energy resources — including LNG, oil and nuclear resources — through 2028.

Analysts have widely described the headline figure as unrealistically high. The European Commission has also stressed that private companies, rather than Brussels, drive the commercial decisions behind added trade.

Market watchers have therefore interpreted the energy commitment more as a signal of the EU’s intention to deepen energy ties with the US, rather than a binding pledge.

LNG has become a particular linchpin of EU-US energy relations, with the US growing into the EU’s dominant supplier amid the continent’s pivot away from Russian natural gas. In 2025, it shipped some 57% of the EU’s imports of the superchilled fuel, or about 60 million metric tons, according to data from S&P Global Energy CERA.

That was the first time on record the EU sourced over 50% of its annual LNG volumes from one country.

European leaders, however, have grown increasingly queasy over the continent’s reliance on overseas energy suppliers, doubling down in recent weeks on a desire to boost domestic energy production amid the trade disruptions from the war in the Middle East.

Time frame

Negotiations with EU member states on final legislation begin immediately.

Parliament halted ratification last month after the US Supreme Court declared some of Trump’s so-called reciprocal global tariffs illegal.

The process had already been delayed by Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries in a dispute over Greenland.

A spokesperson for the European Parliament said the trade deal could be signed “before the summer as a realistic expectation.”

Author: Annalisa Villa, Matt Hoisch

spglobal.com