Coil prices in northwestern Europe are little changed, with at least one mill out of the market for now and not giving new offers.
According to various sources, the bottlenecks for shipping on the river Rhine with its low water levels has resulted in one mill cutting back on offers.
The mill tells Kallanish that “deliveries to customers are not at risk”. It is likely the mill is meeting existing order deliveries, but did not state if it is accepting new orders.
“I talked to one of their people only a day ago, and he would not give me an offer,” one steel service centre manager says, an experience echoed by other service centres.
To its customers, the mill refers to the waterway bottlenecks, causing limited supply of raw materials, and reduced production. The SSC manager wonders “how long that argument will be valid, but so far they use it to stay off the market”.
Elsewhere, another buyer says that he has also not received new offers amid a shortage of raw material arrivals.
Some buyers at German distributors have been told that the stand-off could last until the end of the quarter, “which for me means that it cannot be caused by the waterway problems,” a southern German buyer says.
A mill’s absence from the market – for whichever reason – can make sense in the current lull, with many German states still on school holidays.
The earlier announcement by the market leader mill to bring hot-rolled coil up to €740/tonne ($864/t) delivered has not been realised yet. Transactions remain sparse, with many believing there are some deals below this mark.
According to a Dutch manager, various orders for October delivery have been booked at steel mills at base prices ranging from €710-730/t ex-works.
