“The situation in the whole steel market is very poor at the moment, with prices decreasing week on week,” a trader source said. “Long steel products are not exempt from this situation.”
Market participants also cited cheaper prices for European steel scrap as another factor strongly affecting the market for long steel products.
As an example of European scrap prices, Fastmarkets’ most recent monthly price assessment for steel scrap E3, old thick steel scrap, domestic, delivered mill Germany, was €320-340 ($359-382) on May 28, falling from €340-360 per tonne the previous month.
Rebar offer prices in the Polish domestic market last week fell to 2,550-2,560 zloty ($683-686) per tonne CPT, from 2,580-2,600 zloty per tonne CPT a week before.
As a result, Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, cpt Poland, was 2,550-2,560 zloty per tonne on May 30, falling from 2,580-2,600 zloty per tonne on May 23.
Import rebar offers from Ukraine were heard at €555-560 per tonne, DAP border.
The prices for Polish domestic low-carbon drawing quality wire rod also dropped in the week to May 30.
Offers were heard at 2,800-2,850 zloty per tonne CPT. But market participants indicated that workable prices were around 2,700-2,800 zloty per tonne CPT in the week to Friday, compared with 2,750-2,850 zloty per tonne CPT the previous week.
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel wire rod (drawing quality), domestic, delivered Poland, was 2,700-2,800 zloty per tonne on Friday, falling from 2,750-2,850 the previous week.
Marina Shulga in Dnipro contributed to this report.
