Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Northern Europe at €630.21 ($676.93) per tonne on Thursday, down by €0.67 per tonne from €630.88 per tonne on Wednesday June 19.
The index was down by €5.79 per tonne week on week and by €8.12 per tonne month on month.
Trading was close to non-existent, with only low-tonnage bookings recently reported.
A booking for August-delivery HRC in Germany was heard at €630 per tonne ex-works on Thursday.
And HRC offers from German suppliers were heard at €640-650 per tonne delivered, which would net back to €630-640 per tonne ex-works.
Most buyers estimated the tradable price at around €620-640 per tonne ex-works in Northern Europe.
Buyer sources said there was no room for a price increase, given the slow demand from key steel-using sectors.
Besides, news about some steelmaking capacity restarts in June have “raised eyebrows,” considering that most sources deemed the market as “oversupplied” and stressed all the time that output cuts were needed.
“European mills have short order books and excess tonnages [of HRC] to sell, [so there is a] need to trim output,” a buyer in the Netherlands said.
Slovakia-based steelmaker US Steel Kosice reignited its blast furnace No2 in June and is currently operating all three furnaces.
So far, no announcements about output cuts have been made, but sources told Fastmarkets that mills might consider longer-than-usual summer stoppages to balance the market.
“[A supplier in Southern Europe is] considering a three-week stoppage instead of the traditional two weeks in August and I think other suppliers will try to extend [their] downtime as well,” a buyer source in Germany said.
Sources again stressed the fact that the European flat steel market is oversupplied, and longer summer stoppages might not be enough to balance the market, given slow demand from end-user sectors.
“Demand [for flat steel] is very weak from the end-user side; stocks [at buyers] are not very high, true, but on the other hand, [stocks] are sufficient in the current market,” a second buyer source in Europe said.
Industry sources also had little hope for market effects of the new EU steel import safeguards.
“To see an [HRC price] rebound, we need demand in the first place,” a stockholder in the Benelux area said.
Fastmarkets calculated its corresponding daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Italy at €628.75 per tonne on Thursday, up by €0.62 per tonne from €628.13 per tonne on Wednesday.
The index was down by €2.92 per tonne week on week and by €4.58 per tonne month on month.
The Italian market was quiet on Thursday, and prices were largely unchanged.
Official offers from a local supplier were reported at €650 per tonne delivered (€640 per tonne ex-works).
Buyer sources said that tradeable prices were lower at €620-630 per tonne ex-works.
Some lower bids were reported at €610 per tonne ex-works, but seller sources deemed those as too low.
Local suppliers could offer HRC with around five-week lead times.
For September delivery, sources said that one local mill was aiming at a €20-30 per tonne price increase.
But slow demand left no room for a price rise, buyers said.
The market for imported coil was quiet, with no fresh bookings reported on Thursday.
Sources reported offers from Taiwan, Japan and Malaysia for August-shipment coil at €600-625 per tonne CFR.
One source reported an offer from a Vietnamese mill €590 per tonne CFR on Thursday.
