European heavy plate round-up: Italian re-rollers give discounts for plate

Domestic heavy plate prices declined in Italy in the week to 17 July as re-rollers made last attempts to fill their order books.

Activity started to slow down as the market entered the traditionally quiet second half of the summer, and the impact of the new, tougher steel import quotas was limited in the plate market, sources said. As a result, EU mills did not attempt to achieve price increases, except for a marginal price recovery in Germany.

“The demand is too low, even with lower import volumes, to support price increases for this commodity. We will see if re-rollers will be able to sell more volumes in Southern Europe due to lower import volumes,” a distributor said.

Deals for s235jr-grade plate in Italy were reported at EUR700-720/t ex-works. The aggressive pricing policy of some re-rollers and lower import slab prices have created a generally negative sentiment in the market.

Import slab offers have been heard from Asia at $560-570/t CIF Italy, and re-rollers expect to be able to achieve additional discounts of around $20/t.

In addition, some sources suggested that Russian exporters could return with their semi-finished steel products, with deliveries starting in October due to the start of the new quota period, giving an advantage to plate producers using the cheaper material as feedstock.

In Germany, domestic s235jr plate prices have been heard at EUR800-830/t ex-works.

A producer from the Czech Republic has been offering s355jr plate at EUR810/t delivered Germany.

Author: Maria Tanatar

opisnet.com