Italy
Trading in the Italian market started to pick up over the past week, in contrast to the low levels seen through January.
“Buyers are booking March-rolling plate and order books are slowly filling up,” a supplier told Fastmarkets.
And a second supplier said: “Everyone is finally [accepting] that there is no point postponing [plate] bookings – prices are not going to drop.”
Offers for s275 heavy plate were reported by buyers and sellers at €660-670 ($690-701) per tonne ex-works.
Sources put the tradable leval at around €640-650 per tonne ex-works on Wednesday.
Buyers were less optimistic, and said that while activity has improved compared with “complete nil” in January, overall demand is not booming.
“Mills have great expectations about safeguards updates [to the safeguard measures review and potential quota cuts] and therefore expect lower import availability in the second quarter,” one buyer source said.
Bids from stockholders for tonnages above 1,500 tonnes came in at €630-640 per tonne ex-works, sources said.
And Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel domestic plate 8-40mm, exw Southern Europe remained unchanged at €640-650 per tonne on Wednesday.
A review of European safeguard measures is expected to come into force in April, with tougher measures widely expected, which was tempering buying interest in overseas material, sources said.
Offers of April shipment plate to Italy from South Korea and Indonesia were heard at €580-590 per tonne CFR in the week to Wednesday.
Northern Europe
In Northern Europe, meanwhile, trading in the spot market also started to pick up slightly, although the overall traded volumes remained low, sources said.
“There has been some limited restocking and we have seen more activity [than in] January,” a mill source said.
One German producer, which traditionally focuses on project business, was offering heavy steel plate with lead times of around six weeks at €750-790 per tonne ex-works. But this level was not considered workable for the spot market.
A second German supplier kept its offer price for steel plate at €690-730 per tonne from one location on Wednesday, and at €680-700 from another – both unchanged week on week.
Buyer estimates of the workable level came in at €680-700 per tonne ex-works in the week to Wednesday.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel domestic plate 8-40 mm, exw Northern Europe was unchanged at €680-700 per tonne on Wednesday.
