Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, at €562.50 ($591.58) per tonne on Friday, up by €1.25 per tonne from €561.25 per tonne on November 21.
The index was stable week on week but up by €8.75 per tonne month on month.
Most suppliers in Northern Europe were offering coil for January-February delivery, with official offer prices consolidating around €600-620 per tonne ex-works, sources said, with bids coming in at €560-580 per tonne ex-works.
Market participants told Fastmarkets it hard to fix higher HRC prices in deals because of the persistently weak fundamentals, including deteriorating automotive demand and fierce competition between steel service centers with high inventories and cashflow needs.
And no major changes to the fundamentals or prices are expected until the end of the year, Fastmarkets understands.
Expectations for the first quarter of 2025 remain mixed, however.
Some sources said the recent toughening of trade defense measures – including a steel safeguard review and an anti-dumping investigation into HRC imports from Japan, Vietnam, India and Egypt – was likely to result in a stronger reliance on domestic supplies, which should support a recovery in domestic flat steel prices in Europe.
“The [HRC] market is still oversupplied, considering the fall in demand. It’s always about market balance,” a buyer in Germany said.
“The first quarter [of 2025] might be a bit early [for flat steel prices to recover],” he added, “but [later in the year] we will see better prices, in view of the decline in imports and reduced availability.”
At the same time, a real demand recovery was considered unlikely in the short term, so the chances of a strong price rebound were also low, sources said.
In Southern Europe, meanwhile, Fastmarkets calculated its steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Italy, at €559.58 per tonne on Friday, down by only €0.42 per tonne from €560.00 per tonne on Thursday.
The Italian index was up by €3.58 per tonne week on week and by €11.45 per tonne month on month.
The market in Italy was also mostly quiet, however, with prices broadly flat despite the subdued trading.
“Mills can get good prices [for HRC]. But at the same time, prices have been almost flat for nearly a month. [It is a] standstill situation,” a buyer source said.
HRC with lead times in the first quarter of 2025 was on offer from local suppliers at €600 per tonne delivered, which would net back to €590 per tonne ex-works.
Some sources said that one local mill still had limited tonnages of December-delivery coil available at €580 per tonne delivered – equivalent to €570 per tonne ex-works – but this could not be confirmed at the time of publication.
And buyer estimates of the tradable price for HRC in Italy were heard at €560-580 per tonne delivered (€550-570 per tonne ex-works).
In the week to Friday, few import offers were available to the European market, and the few that were around were not considered workable by local buyers due to the small gap to domestic prices and the risks related to tougher trade measures being introduced in the EU, sources told Fastmarkets.
HRC was on offer from Taiwan and South Korea at €600-605 per tonne CFR Italy, while HRC from Indonesia was on offer to Italy at €555 per tonne CFR and one Turkish mill was offering HRC to Italy at €590 per tonne CFR, including the anti-dumping duty.
Italian buyers, however, estimated the tradable price for imports during the week to Friday as no higher than €530 per tonne CFR.
