Hot-rolled coil prices in Europe continued to drift lower on Monday June 30 amid sluggish demand and ongoing pressure from imports.
Fastmarkets’ calculation of the daily steel HRC index domestic, exw Northern Europe was €557.67 ($653.36) per tonne on Monday, down from €565.63 per tonne on Friday June 27.
Deals for small and medium tonnages were reported to have been done within the wide range of €540-570 per tonne ex-works.
Unconfirmed sales of large tonnages were heard as low as €515-530 per tonne ex-works by several sources.
Compared with Northern Europe, business in the domestic market of Italy was minimal.
Sources said that mills in the country would accept €530-540 per tonne ex-works in the case of bookings, while last week this level was said to be possible for large volumes mainly.
Fastmarkets’ daily steel HRC index domestic, exw Italy was calculated at €535.00 per tonne on Monday, down from €540.42 per tonne on Friday.
The lower domestic prices were attributed to the fact that foreign suppliers, particularly from Indonesia are behaving very aggressively.
Information came to light about 30,000 tonnes of Indonesian coil being sold at €460 per tonne CFR Italy at the end of last week. This is when offers ranged €470-480 per tonne CFR.
India-origin material was available for customers in Italy at €520 per tonne CFR, while the most recent reports of offers from Turkey came at €500-520 per tonne CFR including duty, depending on the size of the cargo.
(The ninth paragraph of this report initially stated there were two cargoes of Indonesian coil sold. This has been corrected to reflect only one cargo reported.)
