It is reported that Turkish Mills Erdemir and Kulacoglou have stopped offering and are supposed to come back in the market during next week. However during last 15 days both mills have been protagonist of important rallies on HRC by selling significant quantities at aggressively discounted prices.
Also Ukrainian Mills have stopped offering for the time being and are supposed to start with new booking for June rolling by May 10th onwards.
Same situation is with Russian Mills that, after having filled up May, by booking substantial quantities of HRC at an average price of EUR 510 per tonne CFR FO Med ports, are now pondering a price increase of EUR 20 per tonne to EUR 30 per tonne.
Plates have substantially kept same position with offers from import not going below the EUR 540 per tonne CFR FO, not withstanding the lucrative exchange rate EUR vs USD. Domestic producers in Italy are now at levels which reflect possibly only nominative price increases.
CR and HDG have also remained basically unchanged with offers from import not going below previous levels despite a strong EUR that have reached 1.48 against USD.
All long products except Beams are suffering of the still consistent and sluggish consumption. Merchant bars have reached down to EUR 240 per tonne basis EXW while rebars are barely sold at an effective price of EUR 480 per tonne EXW. One of the European leader of merchant bars have recently announced a price increase of EUR 30 per tonne along with new extra that are in average EUR 20 per tonne to EUR 30 per tonne higher than previous ones.
The European buyers had been nearly absent for the past 3 months decked up with stock which in any case was sinking slowly seems to be lean and buying might open up towards the 2nd week of May.
( Source: www.steelguru.com )