Non-prime coil gaining favour in Europe

Swedish green steel venture Stegra agreed a multi-year deal with thyssenkrupp Materials Services for the supply of future coil volumes for the pan-European distribution group of non-prime material in January.

In times of an inert market and low price, as seen through most of 2025, non-prime material appears to be growing in attractiveness to buyers to minimise risk as high-standard customers remain reserved.

“The demand is too low, and I see more people asking for non-prime material,” one Benelux trader tells Kallanish. “Many try to get even cheaper than the low prices we have for prime material now,” he adds.

Regular prices are slowly but continuously recovering since then, and longer lead-times indicate more orders for prime coil. But then, the hurdles for imports imposed by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) could mean an advantage for non-prime imported coil.

Another trader notes that the actual role of a trader as an intermediate is stronger when trading declassified material. If dealing with prime material, customers can gather an idea of a price/tonne on numerous channels, so the pricing in that segment is very transparent, he says. “This is not quite so in the non-prime segment, where good prices and offers depend very much on the trader’s network.”

To some extent, such preferences for non-prime are observed in the traditional fields of domestic prime material. According to a service centre manager, “it really depends on the purpose, [such as] if it’s a visible part or not. Customers are relatively flexible.” He notes that customers normally do not proactively “ask for 2A material, but they do accept it if offered.”

One typical mill strategy in times of low sales is the nominal declassification of 1A material to 2A, as a means of justification to offer at a discount. If the current recovery of prices becomes substantiated by a recovery of demand, such offers will likely disappear.