In Italy, trading picked up slightly in the past week, with buyers finalizing their bookings for the first quarter ahead of the year-end.
But trading was slow in general, and producer sources said they were getting 20-40% fewer orders in November-December compared with the same period last year.
As Fastmarkets reported earlier, Italian plate producers were trying to increase prices for new rolling and were targeting offers of €650 ($682) per tonne ex-works for the first quarter.
Some suppliers said they have had limited success, managing to seal higher prices in bookings with some clients.
But another supplier said that higher prices could have been sealed mainly for project business, while the spot market remained weak.
“For small- and medium-sized businesses, there is a struggle; there is fierce competition downstream. We will see if distributors and steel service centers manage to [increase] prices downstream in the new year,” a supplier source said.
Most buyer sources estimated tradeable prices at no higher than €630 per tonne ex-works in the week to Wednesday, claiming that some suppliers were still accepting lower prices to fill gaps in order books, particularly for commodity grades.
Deals were reported at €630-640 per tonne ex-works during the assessment week.
As a result. Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel domestic plate, 8-40mm, exw Southern Europe was €630-640 per tonne on Wednesday, narrowing upward by €10 per tonne from €620-640 per tonne on December 11.
Domestic suppliers were taking prolonged production stoppages in December and January, and industry sources expressed hopes that the move might help to balance the market so the Italian rerollers would be able to achieve higher prices in new-year trades.
The recent news about the safeguards review, announced by the European Commission on Tuesday December 17, also sparked some cautious optimism among sellers.
No details have been revealed yet about the potential changes to steel safeguard measures, but sources familiar with the matter said that quarterly quotas for some origins will likely be reduced and/or new individual quotas might be imposed.
Sources suggested that the Commission’s move will further limit appetite for overseas bookings and therefore support a rebound in European prices in the medium to long run.
“We are heading into [an] era of global trade wars and growing protectionism. Looks like reliance on domestic mills will only increase in 2025,” a buyer in Italy said.
Sources said that interest in overseas plate has already been somewhat cooled by talks about a potential anti-dumping investigation, and the recent safeguard news announcement might result in stronger reliance on European plate.
Some suppliers — notably South Korea, Indonesia and India — have significantly increased heavy plate shipments to the EU in 2023-2024.
Notably, in January-October 2024, total quarto plate deliveries from South Korea to the EU amounted to 640,513 tonnes, compared with 618,070 for the entire year of 2023, Global Trader Tracker (GTT) data showed. In 2022, South Korea shipped only 357,504 tonnes of plate to the bloc.
In the first ten months of 2024, India supplied 439,415 tonnes of quarto plate to the bloc, compared with 349,901 tonnes for the entire year of 2023.
In January-October 2024, quarto plate deliveries from Indonesia to the EU stood at 302,109 tonnes, compared with 328,894 for the entire year of 2023.
Offers of February-shipment plate to Italy from South Korea and Indonesia were heard at €570-580 per tonne CFR.
