And wire rod was heard offered at 3,000 Polish zloty per tonne CPT.
Buyer sources told Fastmarkets that demand for long steel products remained slow and expressed skepticism that the new prices would be accepted in deals, citing that the construction sector — the main consumer of long steel products — was still not performing well.
“The new prices have not been sealed in deals yet — buyers are resisting,” a trading source told Fastmarkets.
Prices for long steel products in Europe have been declining recently, mainly due to slow demand from construction, the key end-user sector.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, exw Poland was 2,650-2,670 zloty per tonne on April 12, down by 5.96% from 2,787-2,870 zloty per tonne on February 23.
And Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) domestic, delivered Northern Europe was €630-655 ($670-697) per tonne on April 10, compared with €655-665 per tonne on February 21.
Despite depressed buyer sentiment, one seller source said that the price for long steel products in Europe would not decrease further because of high production costs.
Besides, imports have become less attractive, with some suppliers having already depleted their second-quarter allocation for some products, the seller source added.
Notably, Turkey’s wire rod import allowance of 116,233 tonnes for April-June had already been fully utilized on Monday April 15, European Commission’s customs data showed.
As for the “other countries” quota for April-June, only slightly over 11,000 tonnes out of the 119,890-tonne allocation were available on Monday.
