Prices in the domestic steel heavy plate market in Italy declined over the week to Thursday July 30, while prices in Northern Europe remained broadly stable on limited activity, market sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday.
Italy
Plenty of base-grade plate orders related to restocking were confirmed at €690-700 ($787-798) per tonne ex-works in Italy, while offers were reported at €710-720 per tonne ex-works, also for S235 plate.
This decreased from previous indications in the market heard at €700-750 per tonne ex-works on July 23.
Sources linked higher offer levels at €740-750 per tonne ex-works to S355-grade plate, but this grade is not part of Fastmarkets’ methodology. They also said September production was mostly sold out, and that mills could try to push prices up after the summer ends.
“We are most probably at the bottom, as most part of September production is sold out and after holidays producers will try to lift prices up a bit in line with coils and based on quota reduction,” a producer told Fastmarkets.
As a result, Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel domestic plate 8-40mm, exw Southern Europe was €690-710 per tonne on Thursday, down from €700-730 per tonne a week earlier.
Northern Europe
In Northern Europe, spot market offers for German plate were reported at €820-850 per tonne ex-works by a trade source, on the same level as latest levels heard on July 23.
The same source said that integrated mills had very good order books and lots of projects, so “everybody is quite optimistic”, expecting higher profit in the second half of the year, which was not necessarily linked to higher output.
On July 23, market participants said that German mills had limited volumes available for the spot market and the earliest lead time for commodity offers was the end of October.
No other price points were received for steel domestic plate 8-40mm in Northern Europe, so Fastmarkets kept its weekly price assessment unchanged at €820-850 per tonne on July 30.
