It is reported that steel prices n Europe are going down and down as customers around EU are restricting purchases only to the day by day need, with volumes drastically decreasing.
For some products like HRC, domestic mills in Italy didn't succeed to implement price increase of EUR 30 per tonne and as a result price is edging clearly below EUR 500 per tonne mark.
Similar is the situation with steel plates which is still resisting around EUR 600 per tonne level but some domestic producers are already offering stock availability at prices around EUR 580 per tonne to EUR 590 per tonne.
Slightly nominal price increases have been seen only for material from import due to EUR devaluation.
On the other hand, offers from China and India are not competitive both because of prices and quantities considered too large.
Traders having stocks at port facilities are struggling as sales are extremely difficult.
Top EU producers are planning personnel redundancy programs involving up to 30% of the workforce.
On the other hand stock levels are quite low which is keeping hopes open for a possible next improvement.
( Source: www.steelguru.com )