The European longs market has remained mainly cautious after returning from the winter holidays this week, but several market players already believe that prices will increase in the coming days amid rumors about the scrap price trend and speculation related to CBAM.
In the local Italian rebar market, prices have remained stable compared to the pre-holiday levels, i.e., at around €290-300/mt ex-works base (€550-560/mt ex-works including regular extras). Italian producers already aim to increase this level as soon as the market returns to full capacity – some production facilities will remain idled for a few more days – but for the moment no official movement has been recorded. “Local [Italian steel] producers certainly aim to increase [finished steel] prices, also in the wake of international rising trends,” a source commented. Another Italian trader, however, stated, “It will be difficult to increase prices. Production restarts will lead to an increase in [rebar] supply, which is already higher than domestic demand.”
Still regarding Italy, wire rod prices in the local market in January have been reported in a range of €565-590/mt delivered for mesh quality and €585-620/mt delivered for drawing quality, although contracts at the lower ends are increasingly rare. Based on what some market sources have reported, in fact, €10-20/mt increases will materialize in the wake of CBAM speculations, the beginning of the new quota period in the EU and the upward trend in the international markets.
It is also worth mentioning that an important Italian producer let drop that it will not be in a hurry to conclude sales in January and so he can afford to further increase list prices higher than the average.
It is also significant that yesterday, January 8, ArcelorMittal announced some price increases of €40-50/mt due to the increase in costs related to CBAM, although this information has not been confirmed by the time of publication.
In the wire rod markets in central and eastern Europe, rising price hypotheses might be more modest, by around €10/mt, but even in this case this is not confirmed information, since, as mentioned, no concrete movements have been recorded this week.
In the export market, rebar prices from Spain to UK ports have been reported at around €580/mt FOB, up €10/mt from the last level recorded by SteelOrbis, whereas no price changes have been reported from Greece as many market players there are still inactive after the winter break.
Finally, in the import market, increases of about €10/mt have been recorded in rebar and wire rod prices from Turkey, which currently stand at about €520/mt CFR and €525/mt CFR, respectively. As for Egyptian material, rebar and wire rod prices have been reported at €495/mt CFR and €505/mt CFR respectively, whereas rebar from Algeria has been reported at around €490/mt CFR. To conclude. prices of Indonesian-origin wire rod to southern European ports have been reported at €465/mt this week.
