European steel hot-rolled coil prices were largely flat on Monday September 1, with buyers remaining cautious about a new round of price increases amid insufficient demand, sources have told Fastmarkets.
The first day after summer break was quiet for the European HRC market, according to sources.
Buyers and sellers were seen gradually coming back to the market, but trading was still subdued since participants were still assessing the situation.
Integrated producers in Northern Europe were heard to be aiming for €600-630 ($701-736) per tonne ex-works for October-November.
At the same time, most buyer sources estimated achievable prices at no higher than €580 per tonne ex-works on Monday.
“Mills are asking for higher prices [for HRC], but there will be no big volumes [of HRC] ordered because buyers already bought higher volumes for the third quarter and there is no immediate need to restock,” a buyer in Germany said.
The buyer added that a lack of new imports might support price rises for HRC with lead times in the first quarter of 2026.
“Because of [the] unclear implementation [of the] Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) we have basically stopped at this moment the import activities,” a second buyer said.
Fastmarkets’ calculation of the daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Northern Europe was €579.17 per tonne on Monday, up by €0.84 per tonne from €578.33 per tonne on Friday.
The Northern European index was up by €5.42 per tonne week on week and up by €19.17 month on month.
Meanwhile, Fastmarkets’ daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Italy was €543.75 per tonne on Monday, up by €2.08 per tonne from €541.67 on Friday.
The Italian index was up by €2.92 per tonne week on week and by €15.42 per tonne month on month.
The Italian market was said to be restarting slowly after the summer break.
Estimations of achievable prices were reported at €540-550 per tonne ex-works, while target offers from integrated mills and re-rollers in Italy for October-delivery coil were heard at €570-580 per tonne ex-works.
A European mill was heard to be offering HRC to Italy at €600 per tonne delivered.
