The European green steel market remained quiet during the week to Thursday October 30. Buyers negotiated purchases for next year and volumes remain steady, Fastmarkets heard.
Green flats
Trading remained muted in the European green steel market, with stakeholders said to be focusing on broader challenges, including Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and new trade measures.
Several big buyers who spoke to Fastmarkes confirmed that they were negotiating flat green steel bookings with European mills for 2026, with the intention to keep purchased tonnages in line with 2025 volumes.
“We won’t increase [green steel tonnages], the market is unlikely to grow much next year,” a steel service center told Fastmarkets.
Another buyer told Fastmarkets they were looking to book 10,000-15,000 tonnes of green steel in 2026, in line with 2025 volumes.
Under Fastmarkets’ methodology, European green flat steel is defined as material produced with Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions capped at a maximum of 0.8 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of steel produced.
Sources agreed that prices varied widely because transactions are largely project-based.
“Nobody buys [green steel] back-to-back; it’s project business only,” a buyer in Northern Europe said.
European mills were offering green steel premiums starting around €200 per tonne, with some aiming for €210–300 per tonne, although achievable transaction levels were lower in practice.
Buyer sources indicated that achievable premiums for green flat steel generally ranged between €100 and €150 per tonne, with larger-volume transactions typically concluded at €120–150 per tonne. Mill representatives, however, pointed to a slightly higher range of €150–180 per tonne.
Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of the green steel domestic, flat-rolled, differential to the HRC index, ex-works Northern Europe was stable at €100-170 per tonne on Thursday, unchanged since September 11.
Green longs
In the long steel segment, it remains harder for producers to push through premiums among customers, owing to the initially more environmentally friendly nature of production.
Fastmarkets’ methodology defines European green long steel as steel produced with Scope 1, 2 or 3 emissions at a maximum of 0.5 tonne of CO2 per tonne of steel.
Green longs premium offers heard in the week to Thursday varied within the range of €15-50 per tonne, according to several sellers.
Demand remained subdued, but supplier sources expect that after CBAM implementation, demand for green steel in Europe will increase.
The same sources noted that demand for green longs was mainly coming from private projects.
But other sources argued that public construction projects, especially in Nordic states, were procuring green steel.
“There are requirements regarding carbon emissions per square meter in some countries, and these regulations push construction companies to procure green steel,” a trading source said.
Requirements for carbon emissions per square meter vary by jurisdiction and building type, but often set maximum limits on a building’s life-cycle or operational emissions. For example, in Denmark, new buildings larger than 1,000 square meters must comply with a life-cycle climate-impact threshold of 12 kg CO2-equivalent per square meter per year since 2023.
Meanwhile, in France, the regulation RE2020 demands new residential and tertiary buildings to meet life-cycle carbon limits (embodied and operational). For single-family housing, for instance, the embodied-carbon benchmark is 640 kg CO per square meter for 2022, reduced to 415 kg CO2 per square meter by 2031.
Vlada Novokreshchenova in Dnipro contributed to this report
