Hot-rolled coil prices were firm in Europe while buying was muted, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday October 31.
Mills have largely filled their order books for December delivery and have started offering volumes scheduled for delivery in January. But customers postponed business preferring to destock before the end of the year.
A sell-side source from Northern Europe said he expects trading to revive closer to December, when buyers are ready to book volumes with January delivery.
Deals for January-delivery material have not been numerous in Northern Europe so far, according to market participants. Nevertheless, sporadic deals and the achieved prices — of €610-620 ($707-719) per tonne EXW — demonstrated upward trend compared with December-delivery prices — €580-590 per tonne EXW.
Still, the levels achieved so far for January-delivery coils were far from mill’s bullish targets of €620-650 per tonne EXW.
No specific deals were reported to Fastmarkets on Friday.
The reasons for the positive price trend was said to be purely of import regulatory policy change nature and not driven by market fundamentals.
Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Northern Europe was €603.75 per tonne on Friday, stable day on day.
The index was up by €2.87 per tonne week on week and by €26.25 per tonne month on month.
Fastmarkets’ corresponding daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Italy was calculated at €597.50 per tonne on Friday, up by €4.17 per tonne from €593.33 per tonne on Thursday October 30.
The Italian index was up by €7.50 per tonne week on week and by €47.5 per tonne month on month.
A local buyer said that December-delivery volumes were no longer available, while January-delivery offers have not been numerous.
Offers came at €600-610 per tonne EXW versus estimates of workable prices at €590 per tonne EXW. No fresh deals were heard on Friday.
