Category: Latest Updates

Global crude steel production in September climbed on a year-on-year basis for the first time in 2022, rising 3.7% on the year to 151.7 million mt, with production increases in China offsetting decreases in most regions, according to World Steel Association, or worldsteel, data released Oct. 25.

The global monthly production volume was also 2% higher from August’s production levels, reaching a three-month high.

China’s production registered an increase of 17.6% year on year and a 3.7% increase month on month to 87 million mt, which accounted for 57.3% of the total volume and also reached a three-month high.

This brought total global production for the first nine months of 2022 to 1.41 billion mt, down 4.3% year on year, with China’s production for the period dropping 3.4% to 780 million mt, worldsteel said.

Second largest global producer, India, saw crude steel output rise 1.8% on the year in September to 9.9 million mt, although this was 2.5% lower from August levels, bringing the country’s nine-month total to 93.3 million mt, up 6.4% on the year.

Iran’s production increased 26.7% on the year and increased 33% from August to 2.7 million mt, with the January-to-September total rising 9.8% to 22.2 million mt.

Meanwhile, all other top-10 steel producing countries saw production fall in September.

Japan’s September production totaled 7.1 million mt, down 12.3% on the year and 3% lower from August, with January-August output also lower on the year at 67.8 million mt, the data showed.

The North American region saw output decrease 7.6% on the year to 9.1 million mt, with the US producing 6.6 million mt, down 7.5% on the year and down 4.2% month on month to a seven-month low.

South America recorded a 9.6% year-on-year production decrease to 3.5 million mt in September, which was also down 3.8% from August. The main producer, Brazil, produced 2.7 million mt, down 11.7% on the year and down 3.4% from August to also reach a seven-month low.

For the nine-month period, US output dropped 4.3% to 61.5 million mt, while Brazil production was down 5.3% to 25.9 million mt, worldsteel data showed.

Countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Ukraine, saw production fall 21.9% on the year in September to 6.7 million mt.

Russia – the fifth largest worldwide producer – was estimated to have produced 5.7 million mt, down 6.8% year on year and down 3.2% from the previous month. The drop was likely due to western sanctions imposed on Russian steel products due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. In the first nine months of 2022, Russian production dropped 6% on the year to an estimated 54.6 million mt, the data showed.

South Korea produced 4.6 million mt of steel in September, down 15.4% on the year and also 22.4% lower than August to the lowest monthly volume since S&P Global Commodity Insights’ records began in January 2018.

For the January-September period, South Korea registered a production decrease of 4.4% to 50.5 million mt.

European production falls 17.2% on year

Meanwhile, the whole of Europe, including the UK, registered a production decrease of 17.2% on the year to 14.2 million mt in September, which 7.6% higher than August levels and brought the nine-month total to 140.4 million mt, down 8.5% on the year.

Europe’s largest steel producer, Germany, produced 2.8 million mt in September, down 15.4% on the year and down 1.1% month on month to the lowest level since August 2020. Germany’s nine-month output was also down 6% on the year to 28.2 million mt.

The weak data followed a number of facilities across Europe being idled in response to weaker steel demand and higher costs, especially due to energy costs.

Platts assessed domestic HRC prices in Northern Europe at Eur730/mt ex-works Ruhr Sept. 30, down 20.8% since the start of 2022, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Turkey produced 2.7 million mt of crude steel in September, down 19.4% year on year and down 5.9% on the month. In the first nine months of the year, Turkey registered a decrease of 9.3% to 27.3 million mt of production.

Steel production from electric arc furnaces fell 23.8% on the year in September to 866,000 mt, while production from basic oxygen furnaces was down 11.2% on the year to 1.98 million mt, the data showed.

Total September production of pig iron from 38 countries was 106.8 million mt, up 3.6% year on year, the data showed, while direct reduced iron produced worldwide amounted to 9.3 million mt, up 12.7% year on year, the data showed.

Pig iron output over the January-September period totaled 971.8 million mt, down 4.4% year on year, while DRI production for the period rose 7.4% on the year to 82.5 million mt.

Crude steel data covers the 64 countries that report to worldsteel, accounting for about 98% of the world’s crude steel production.

— Annalisa Villa, Jacqueline Holman

Steelmaker SSAB and auto group Volvo Cars expect new EU standards defining low-emissions steel, which includes clarification on the role of ferrous scrap, to accelerate investments and demand for so-called green steel, company executives said Oct. 25.

Standardizing low emissions steel with involvement from the European Commission, and industry stakeholder groups such as ResponsibleSteel, may facilitate investments and support for new plants against climate targets, while new procurement criteria may drive market interest in compliant grades.

Currently, new low-emissions steel supply is made up mainly of carbon-accounted flat steel via blast furnaces, with certifications on emissions savings allocated to specific volumes, with focus on renewable energy use for existing scrap-based steel. Some sales and trials using new or adapted production processes are taking place, led by auto and truckmakers as well as white goods manufacturers. Use of emissions savings certificates need to be addressed in a common standard for low-emissions steel, Celine Domecq, EU head of public affairs at Volvo Cars said at an EC webinar.

“We are interested in a standard or a harmonized definition of what is near-zero steel,” she said. “There is a lot about mass balancing and certificates and we need this to be addressed, and be very clear what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, otherwise you will have a lot of creative accounting on what is clean, and what it not clean.”

A common standard needs to be robust and technologically neutral in a way to be able to adopt with new steel production processes, she said.

Volvo Cars needs to be sure around the basis of carbon emissions data for its steel procurement, and for its communications with customers, she said.

While clearer definitions and a common European standard may help, the cost of renewable power underpinning low emission steel production has surged, pitching costs at a multiple of input costs via traditional blast furnaces using met coal and a variety of iron ore. Difficulties in securing scarce iron ore grades used in traditional direct-reduced iron production transitioning to deploy green hydrogen to slash emissions add to concerns around volumes, as new DRI projects in many EU countries are announced.

SSAB pilot

Sweden’s SSAB is still in its pilot stage of testing green hydrogen-based steelmaking under small batches with end-users such as AB Volvo. SSAB’s joint venture HYBRIT will only start up a larger demonstration DRI plant in 2026. Steel groups such as ArcelorMittal, Salzgitter, ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel Europe have plans for new DRI plants starting this decade, which may increase volumes available.

“We need to have an ambitious standard, that drives investments towards transformative technology, because without investing in technology that removes emissions from iron ore-based steelmaking, we will not have enough steel by only relying on recycled scrap-based steel,” SSAB’s chief technology officer Martin Pei said in the seminar hosted by member of the European Parliament Jessica Polfjard.

“Worldwide, we produce a lot of steel every year, starting from iron ore, so focusing on the standard that drives the transition of that part of the industry is going to be the key to solve the climate crisis,” he said.

SSAB has accelerated investments to adopt electric arc furnace steelmaking at existing sites with blast furnaces, while the company sees the pace of development determined by permitting approvals for new plants and high power transmission lines.

Scrap metal will remain key for lower emissions steel, where available.

“We need to use as much as possible recycled scrap, that’s the best way to save CO2 emissions,” Pei added.

Volvo Cars sees the importance of scrap to be included in any benchmarking standard, taking into account recycled steel is crucial to meet EU circular objectives.

Ambitious targets for recycled content could be an obstacle for standardization for low-emissons steel, said Polfjard.

Ecodesign

Steel is expected to be covered by the EU’s Ecodesign Standards for Sustainable Products Regulation, or ESPR, according to SSAB. In parallel to the ESPR, the EC aims to regulate the creation of reliable, comparable and verifiable environmental labels across the EU.

Steel may be a strong industry candidate for inclusion in the first report for consultation on the topic, Jean Bergevin, senior expert for energy intensive industries unit DG Grow said at the webinar.

Begevin suggested demand for steel differentiated around carbon emissions will drive the transition, more so than by energy supply factors. There is strong interest for low-emissions steel in some segments, while a difficult regional economy with cost pressures could make users substitute for other types of lower cost steel if possible.

While the largest EU steelmaker ArcelorMittal is using a carbon-accounted steel approach, as well as benchmarking steel carbon intensity, the company is advocating inherent steel emissions-based standardization. ArcelorMittal, which offers a range of lower-emissions steel products, has 600,000 mt of low-emissions steel certificates available for sale by the end of 2022, it said.

Integrated steel producers have looked at ways to allocate effective cuts to carbon emissions into their steel offering, rather than work off smaller contributions to individual steel product emissions across overall production volumes.

The so-called mass balance methodology used by ThyssenKrupp, Austria’s Voestalpine, Tata Steel Europe and Kobe Steel, allocates emissions savings to a portion of steel products. ThyssenKrupp said its saving are directly related to the blast furnace production process by adapting feedstocks with scrap or hot-briquetted iron.

ArcelorMittal said July 28 that its steel decarbonization standards tracking inherent emissions in hot-rolled steel product — introduced in June for industry consultation — is complementary to methods “rewarding virtual low-carbon steel, at least until significant amounts of physical low-carbon are available.”

Steel pricing and premium discussions, along with benchmarking around the inclusion and allocation of emissions, continues. However, the relative cost of producing lower emissions steel for markets may become more focal as new steel standards consolidate and energy and carbon prices are factored in.

— Hector Forster

Tata Steel will invest Eur65 million ($64 million) in the the engineering package of the hydrogen-based manufacturing route for its site at IJmuiden, the Netherlands, the company said Oct. 25.

The investment will make steel production at IJmuiden more sustainable, replacing the current blast furnace technology with direct reduction plants and electric furnaces before 2030 with the aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2045.

Tata Steel Nederland has signed contracts with three companies — McDermott, Danieli and Hatch — for the further technical preparations of the hydrogen route, it said.

The new DRI plants will be built at IJmuiden and all existing plants will remain in operation until the DRI is up and running, which guarantees continuity of supply throughout the transition, it said.

The company also said it has completed major projects at its hot strip mill and main cold rolling mill at IJmuiden. The hot strip mill will now be able to process the strongest types of strip steel.

The completion of the reconfiguration of the cold rolling mill will result in an improvement in the surface quality and the development of new UHSS steel grades needed to meet the demands of the automotive market. In addition, the key automotive hot dip galvanizing line in IJmuiden will be also upgraded within the next six months, it said.

Tata Steel Nederland has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Ford in Europe to supply the carmaker with Zeremis green steel once the IJmuiden steelworks switches to green hydrogen-based steelmaking.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe down Eur10 at Eur650/mt ex-works Ruhr Oct. 24.

The agreement makes Ford the first customer committed to offtake the green steel that Tata Steel plans to produce via the hydrogen route.

“While we are transitioning to become a producer of large quantities of high-quality green steel, we can already supply our customers with a significant amount of high-quality low-CO2 steel today and thus make their product offering more sustainable,” Hans van den Berg, Tata Steel Nederland chairman said. “By aligning our sustainability ambitions with customers like Ford, we can create an early market for green steel, speed up the transition and meet the expectations of society at large.”

— Annalisa Villa

Swedish steelmaker SSAB described the fourth quarter as continuing to lack certainty due to rising inflation, a shortage of components and risks associated with the war in Ukraine, the company said in a statement Oct. 25.

The European market had weakened, SSAB said, prompting it to cut production of construction-related products. To reduce capacity in Q4, the maintenance of a 1.3 million mt blast furnace in Raahe, Finland, will be brought forward and start in mid-November, the company added, with works expected to last for six-to-eight weeks.

The outlook for the markets of SSAB Special Steels and SSAB Americas was expected to be more stable, while Q4 raw material costs were also seen as steadier than in Q3, it said.

Q3 production in the third quarter was affected by planned maintenance outages in SSAB Europe and SSAB Americas, which also hit shipments, with the European unit also suffering from lower demand.

Overall, SSAB crude steel production in Q3 slipped to 1.92 million mt from 1.99 million mt in Q2, but was higher than Q3 2021’s 1.84 million mt.

Total shipments in Q3 were 1.47 million mt, down on Q2’s 1.71 million mt and up on 1.63 million mt in the year-ago quarter.

Q3 shipments in Europe fell 10% on the year to 713,000 mt, while crude steel production slipped to 1.07 million mt.

SSAB Americas’ Q3 shipments dropped 14% on the year to 416,000 mt, with crude steel production down to 256,000 mt versus 293,000 mt, due to annual maintenance at its facility Montpelier, Iowa.

Special steel shipments in Q3 dropped to 336,000 mt, compared with the year-ago quarter when they were 348,000 mt, while crude steel output was 592,000 mt down from 469,000 mt.

Customer demand for fossil-free steel continued to rise with SSAB starting a partnership with Oshkosh Corp. which will be the first in the US to develop prototypes for commercial vehicles in fossil-free steel. Feasibility studies for SSAB’s planned mini-mills in Lulea, Sweden, and Raahe are continuing as planned.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe down Eur10 ($9.90) at Eur650/mt ex-works Ruhr Oct. 24.

— Annalisa Villa

Ukrainian mining and steel company Metinvest Group has filed claims to the European Court of Human Rights against Russia for damages caused to its property and possessions in Mariupol and other Ukraine territories since the start of the war, it said Oct. 25.

The company’s two Mariupol-based steelworks — Azovstal and Ilyich — were destroyed in May due to the war.

Metinvest said 16 companies of the group had filed claims and more than 10 additional companies would file similar claims by the end of 2022.

The company said it was claiming that Russia had been violating its rights under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights by causing significant damage and destruction to its assets, denying Metinvest control over its assets, effectively depriving it of ownership over the assets and depriving the company of the business use and income-generating potential over the assets.

“Therefore, each group company, which has suffered damages because of full-scale Russia’s invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, is filing a claim against Russia to hold Russia accountable for the devastations that it has caused to the group’s assets and seeks fair compensation for damages occurred due to Russian aggression,” Metinvest said.

In addition, Metinvest co-owner Rinat Akhmetov previously filed a claim with the ECHR on June 23, which the company said it was supporting, as the applications were “mutually complementary.”

Metinvest’s 49.99%-owned Zaporizhstal iron and steel works, the second-largest steel mill in Ukraine, had been running at 50% of capacity since restarting operations in early April.

Before that, it had been idled shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but restarted operations after 33 days, starting with coke and sinter plants and then running two of its four blast furnaces.

It had also restarted some of the rolling facilities, with roughly 5,000 employees involved in production processes, it said previously.

The mill produced 1.213 million mt of steel in January-September, down 58.7% year on year, with pig iron output dropping 52% to 1.566 million mt and rolled metal production decreasing 56.4% to 1.071 million mt.

Metinvest’s long rolled steel producer Kamet Steel in Kamianske had also been operating.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the daily Black Sea billet price at $520/mt FOB Oct. 24, down 12.6% from the beginning of January.

— Jacqueline Holman

This week will see most major German and other northwest European mill, distributors, and technology providers for coil and sheet gather at the Euroblech sheet fair in Hanover. The event alternates annually with Blechexpo in Stuttgart, and both fairs are usually the start of talks for long-term supply contracts for the coming year.

The basis orientation for price negotiations are normally the previous year’s deals, while current spot prices play an important, but lesser role. At Blechexpo 2021, mills triggered some irritation when all announced a €600/tonne ($592) hike on top of 2020 prices, “differing by maybe €5 here and there”, a German buyer recalls.

That resulted in prices virtually doubling compared to deals closed at too-low prices in 2020, prior to a major surge that caught everyone by surprise. Eventually, most deals last year settled at around €1,000/t for hot rolled coil, with cold rolled and galv correspondingly higher.

This time, players expect that contracts will be several hundred euros below last year’s, and buyers will be inclined to postpone providing their signatures, as long as spot market prices keep sinking.

A coordinated offer from mills like last year is unlikely, the German buyer tells Kallanish, but he believes that mills might come up with proposals for new price mechanisms. One such tool could be an energy price index, as is standard for aluminium, he suggests. “In any case, they will have a hard time arguing against the spot price trend,” he concludes.

Christian Koehl Germany

The continuing deterioration of the EU economy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis is leading to a recession severely impacting industrial sectors. The steel market outlook has worsened for both the second half of 2022 and 2023, with steel demand receding more strongly than expected (-3.5% for this year and -1.9% for next year). Yet, imports penetration persists at historically high levels.

“All downside factors have remained in place and even exacerbated, especially skyrocketing energy prices, which lead to unbearable production costs. This has entailed a further cut in apparent steel consumption and a significant downward revision of steel-using sectors’ output in the EU for the remainder of this year and supposedly for the first half of next year”, said Axel Eggert, Director General of the European Steel Association (EUROFER). “Even more worrying is the persistent high level of distortive steel imports into the EU in such a context. We risk heading towards significant industrial capacity destruction in Europe, if emergency trade measures reflecting the precarious situation of some critical industries in Europe are not taken”, he added.

After the rebound experienced throughout 2021 (+16.3%) following the pandemic, in the second quarter of 2022 apparent steel consumption’s positive trend came to an end with a marked drop (-4.8%), down to 38.6 million tonnes. Negative performances are predicted to continue throughout 2022 and at least up to the first half of 2023, consolidating the prospect of a deeper-than-expected annual recession in apparent steel consumption this year (-3.5%, previously estimated at -1.7%) and also in the next (-1.9%). These would be the third and the fourth steel consumption recessions respectively in five years.

EU steel market overview

Weak demand strongly impacted domestic deliveries. They recorded a sharp decrease in the second quarter (-7.1%), confirming the negative trend started at the beginning of 2022 (-0.1%) and reversing 2021’s direction (+11.9%).

By contrast, imports into the EU continued to grow, although at a slower pace (+1.6%, after +28.5% in the first quarter), with import penetration persisting at historically high levels.

EU steel-using sectors

Steel-using sectors’ output proved to be more resilient than initially foreseen in the second quarter of 2022 (+5.7%), owing to the carry-over effect of the post-COVID rebound of 2021 (+8.4%). Favourable developments were observed in the construction, mechanical engineering and transport sectors, in particular automotive. This should secure growth for 2022 (+1.9%).

However, the increasing impact of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the hike in energy prices are expected to weigh heavily during the end of 2022 up to the first quarter of 2023 at least. This has contributed to a downward revision of steel-using sectors’ output in 2023 (-0.9% compared to the previous +2.2%). This could be the second recession in Steel Weighted Industrial Production (SWIP) in ten years, after the one experienced in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil remained unchanged in Europe Oct. 25, though market participants expected further price declines amid oversupply concerns.

Platts assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur650/mt ex-works Ruhr Oct. 25, stable day on day.

The majority of buyer and mill sources reported tradable value at Eur650/mt ex-works Ruhr.

Some buyers, however, said that they were unable to achieve such prices and have been receiving official offers at Eur735/mt delivered Germany or at Eur700/mt ex-works Northern Europe. However, those sources acknowledged that prices around Eur650/mt ex-works could be achieved on firm bids for large tonnages.

End-users and distributors suffer from high stocks of coil booked earlier this year at high prices. Distributors have been failing to get margins on their sales or to destock needed volumes. This, combined with general uncertainty in the market caused by the current economic and geopolitical situation, has forced buyers to hold back from restocking.

Some buyers say they have enough material in stocks to avoid new purchasing until mid-first quarter 2023.

As widely agreed at the EuroBLECH 2022 trade fair in Hanover, Germany, buyers say that further production cuts are needed to balance supply and demand. The capacity reductions already introduced by the European mills were deemed insufficient to bring balance to the market, especially as related to German production.

In addition, taking into account the recent decline of energy costs, sources say mills have room to give additional discounts. The majority of the sources anticipated prices settling at Eur600/mt ex-works Northern Europe in the near term, while some believe prices will move below the Eur600/mt mark.

“Mills are definitely covering their costs,” a German distributor said. “Otherwise they would have not been able to move prices down as rapidly as they did in October.”

Platts is part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.

— Maria Tanatar, Benjamin Steven

Nordic steelmaker SSAB plans to stop operations at one blast furnace in Finland next month, while Germany’s Thyssenkrupp will stop a hot-rolling mill in Bochum for about a month and Italian steelmaker Arvedi plans a longer-than-usual holiday stoppage in December, Fastmarkets heard during the Euroblech Trade Fair in Hanover, Germany, on Wednesday October 26.
SSAB will stop the BF in Raahe, which has capacity for 1.25 million tonnes per year, in mid-November for about for 6-8 weeks, Fastmarkets heard. The outage was brought forward in order to reduce output during the fourth quarter in the face of weak steel demand.

The company operates two BFs in Raahe with combined capacity for 2.5 million tpy of pig iron. The company produces hot-rolled coil and plate in Raahe.

Meanwhile, Thyssenkrupp, which was one of the few steelmaker which had not announced any output cuts during the current energy costs crisis, will stop a 4.4 million-tpy hot-rolling mill in Bochum for one month starting in December, Fastmarkets heard.

Arvedi will extend its planned maintenance in December by one week, Fastmarkets heard. The company will stop operations on December 19 for at least 14 days, several sources said.

Market sources expected the announced output cuts to help to balance the oversupplied HRC market in Europe in the coming months.

“That’s what the market needs right now – to reduce the volumes. There is no other way to balance supply and demand,” a steel service center in Germany told Fastmarkets.

Italian re-roller Marcegaglia also plans to stop its flat-steel rolling and tube welding facilities in Italy for one week in November and two weeks in December, Fastmarkets heard. The exact dates and assets affected have yet to be announced. But sources suggested that the company will stop all its lines in Italy – in Ravenna, San Giorgio di Nogaro, Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Boltiere, Lomagna, Casalmaggiore and Forli.

HRC prices in Europe have been declining almost non stop so far in the second half of 2022 due to both insufficient demand from end-user sectors and overstocking at buyers.

Fastmarkets’ latest calculation of the daily steel HRC index, domestic, ex-works Northern Europe, was €670.00 ($664.09) per tonne on October 25, unchanged from the previous day.

The latest calculation was, however, down by €13.75 per tonne week on week and by €95.00 per tonne month on month.

(This story was updated to include new information about Marcegaglia, and with the addition of the table, neither of which were available at the time of initial publication.)

Published by: Julia Bolotova

European hot-rolled coil prices were stable to slightly weaker in a low-volume market on Wednesday October 26, with European producers planning more production cuts in the fourth quarter, Fastmarkets understands.More European producers plan to reduce HRC output because they expect demand to remain low in an oversupplied market.

The production cuts might help to balance supply and demand, sources said, but it will take some time before the output cuts have any discernible effect.

Buyers and mills have different views on market developments at the moment, however.

Producers expect buyers to come back to the market to book first-quarter 2023 volumes in December, with that rebound in activity and the announced output cuts expected to push up HRC prices.

Conversely, buyers only expect to see limited restocking in December because of still-high stock levels.

“I think we will need to restock for [HRC] with delivery in the mid-first quarter [of] 2023 at the earliest,” a steel service center source told Fastmarkets.

Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, ex-works Northern Europe at €666.25 ($660.37) per tonne on Wednesday, down by €3.75 from €670 per tonne on the previous day.

The latest calculation is down by €3.75 per tonne week on week and by €97.08 per tonne month on month.

Transactions were reported in the region at €650 per tonne exw, while offers for HRC with December lead times were heard at €670-685 per tonne exw, sources said.

After the index was published, a trading source in Benelux reported a deal at €630 per tonne exw from the integrated mill in the region, but this was not widely confirmed by other sources.

One distributor source reported an offer of €735 per tonne delivered in Germany from an integrated mill, equivalent to about €685 per tonne exw.

Steel mills have started negotiations with end users for long-term contracts for 2023, but no deals have been concluded yet because the gap between offers and bids remains too wide.

Buyers’ price ideas for the 2023 first-half contracts were around €680-700 per tonne exw, while producers were aiming for a minimum of €800 per tonne exw, sources said.

“The half-year price doesn’t work in such a volatile market. We’ve moved to quarterly contracts with some customers during [the Covid-19 pandemic, and] I think this will, eventually, become more common,” a mill source told Fastmarkets.

Fastmarkets’ calculation of its daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Italy was €685 per tonne on Wednesday, down by €10 per tonne from €695 per tonne on Tuesday October 25.

The latest calculation of the Italian index is up by €10 per tonne week on week but down by €78.41 per tonne month on month.

Offers from integrated mills in Italy were reported at €680-720 per tonne exw, sources said, while bids from stockholders and tubemakers were reported at €650-570 per tonne exw.

The market in Italy was also quiet on Wednesday, with buyers delaying restocking.

Import HRC offers from Japan and South Korea came in at €620-630 per tonne cfr Italy, but bids were reported at €600-610 per tonne cfr. There also were unconfirmed reports of Japan-origin HRC for mid-first-quarter 2023 delivery at €620 per tonne cfr in the week to Wednesday.

Published by: Julia Bolotova