European Hot Rolled Steel Coil Merchants Watch For The Appearance Of Fresh Import Offers

 On January 5, prices for European Hot rolled steel coil remained constant as market participants continued to watch and wait in the absence of many domestic or imported offers.

North European Hot rolled steel coil was rated unchanged by Platts for the day at EUR 700/mt ex-works Ruhr.

The minimum price level for January trading was usually thought to be Eur700/mt ex-works, while mills are apparently mulling higher prices given the robust restocking activity in December. The buy-side is still worried that increases are not fundamentally underpinned, though.

Although it’s acceptable to be bullish, a distributor noted that this price hike was sparked by restocking rather than end-user demand. Despite this, consumers of Hot rolled steel coil will need to purchase quickly for April due to the lengthening lead times, so it’s likely that the hike will remain for at least the entire month.

Only a few international mills were advertising their products, and trade sources were waiting for new import bids.

One merchant in the North observed that several mills have not yet made any offers. Most people are waiting to see who enters the market first and where prices will land. We have a few bids from India, but we are still expecting pricing on hot-rolled from the far east.

While there aren’t many offers, there have been hints that material can be imported for $670 per metric ton CIF Spain ex-India and $660 to $670 per metric ton CIF Italy ex-Egypt.

According to a mill source, prices were expected to rise to Eur700/mt CIF in the Italian market. Traders were slightly optimistic about near-term activity given longer European mill lead-times compared to the second half of last year.

With the specified European mill lead times extending into March, import offers  for Hot rolled steel coil have been heard for deliveries as late as June.