On Monday, ArcelorMittal announced a price increase of €20 per tonne for December-delivery hot-rolled coil, with new offers at €630 ($730) per tonne ex-works or delivered, depending on the region, compared with €610 per tonne ex-works or delivered for October/November delivery coil, several sources told Fastmarkets.
For December-delivery hot-dipped galvanized coil, offer prices were set at €730 per tonne ex-works or delivered.
And for January delivery HRC, the company was hoping to get €650 per tonne ex-works or delivered. For January-delivery HDG, the target offer was confirmed at €750 per tonne ex-works or delivered.
New offers have not been traded so far, but market sources noted that sentiment among other suppliers was becoming increasingly bullish, following the announcement of a new trade regime last week.
The European Commission unveiled on October 7 a proposal for sweeping reform of its steel import safeguards, suggesting cuts in tariff-free quotas by about 47% and imposing a steep 50% ad valorem duty on any volumes beyond the new threshold.
This move – and of course the introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on January 1, 2026 – were expected to make importing steel “extremely challenging, and therefore greater reliance in domestic steel [operations] in the first quarter of 2026 was expected,” a distributor in Germany said.
In recent weeks, European HRC prices have been broadly stable, with stakeholders expecting more clarity about the new trade measures and CBAM, and postponing purchases.
It remained to be seen whether the new offers would be accepted by European buyers.
So far, tradable prices for HRC across Europe have remained far below ArcelorMittal’s target offers.
“At this stage, those levels [€630 per tonne and €650 per tonne] are not digestible. On top of that, other mills are still offering lower prices,” a steel service center in Germany said.
On October 13, sources estimated tradeable values for December-delivery coil at €580-590 per tonne ex-works in Northern Europe.
Fastmarkets’ most recent calculation of the daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was €577.50 per tonne on October 10, unchanged from the day before.
The Northern European index was up by €2.50 per tonne week on week but down by €5.63 per tonne month on month.
