European distributors of flat steel products reported marginally lower year-on-year shipments for January-June 2022, the regional steel industry association EUROMETAL said on Tuesday August 15.
In the first six months of 2022, flat steel shipments in the EU fell by 1.1% year on year.
Eurometal’s stock index for flat steel service centers in the EU was 107 in June 2022, compared with 71 in June 2021. The index uses the 2018 average as its 100-point basis.
Stock levels at EU steel service centers averaged 79 days’ worth of supply in June 2022, compared with 53 days in the corresponding month of 2021.
In June 2022, European coil prices continued to drop amid persistently slow buying activity and chronic overstocking at distributors and steel service centers.
Despite a short-term stabilization of HRC prices in July, the downtrend has resumed with European producers taking an aggressive approach and cutting their offer prices to fill weak order books.
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, ex-works Northern Europe, at €770.00 ($785.69) per tonne on Monday, down by just €4.17 per tonne from €774.17 per tonne on Friday.
The latest calculation of the index was down by €53.75 per tonne week on week and by €81.67 per tonne month on month.
Multi-product distributor shipments in the EU and UK fell 12.8% year on year in January-June 2022, according to Eurometal data. During the review period all steel product shipment volumes fell.
In June 2022 alone, however, multi-product distributor stocks increased by 4.4% compared with June 2021, with only profile and merchant bar stocks dropping.
Published by: Julia Bolotova
