European heavy plate round-up: Bullish sentiment prevailed

Bullish sentiment prevailed in the European heavy plate market in the week to 31 October, supported by price recovery in coil products and reduced interest in imported goods due to the approaching carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) and anticipated tighter quotas. 

Plate buyers have been showing greater interest in domestic material as the new policies coming into force next year will both limit availability and increase prices.

European re-rollers that traditionally rely on imported slab need to achieve higher prices to cover CBAM costs for semi-finished products arriving next year. Although the EU authorities have not released full guidance on the measures yet, market participants estimated that the CBAM duties will be around EUR50/t for slab.

“With plate prices of EUR650/t ex-works [in Italy] re-rollers can safely import slab from Asia and cover CBAM costs of around EUR40-50/t”, a reroller said.

Imported slab from Asia has been offered at around $520/t CFR Italy, and bids have been reported closer to $500/t CFR.

In Italy, deals for heavy plate have been reported at EUR620-650/t ex-works. The material has been offered at EUR650/t ex-works and market participants expect that new deals will consolidate around this number.

Some market sources, however, claimed that while the higher prices have been mainly accepted by end-users and projects, distributors have been resisting the rise.

The 19th round of sanctions against Russia adopted in the EU last week include measures against Evraz PLC, a UK-headquartered company with core steel manufacturing and mining assets in Russia. Some market participants expect that this will remove cheaper slab exported by Evraz to some European re-rollers, including those located in the Czech Republic and France, therefore resulting in some plate price rises. Others, however, claim that sanctions are only targeting the UK company and that exports would continue.

German mills have been offering heavy plate at EUR700-730/t ex-works, and a Northwest European integrated mill still had some volumes to offer at EUR670/t ex-works.

A re-roller from the Czech Republic has been targeting a higher price of EUR700/t ex-works, around EUR40-50/t above the latest transactions.

Weekly European heavy plate, slab and green steel