It is seen that prices of flat products in Europe are sliding down, not heavily but going down.
As per market information, during last days quite many distressed lots have been offered in Italy and Spain, mainly from Ukraine but customers are quite reluctant to book as expecting prices to further go down.
Exchange rate EUR to USD is also not helping because of prices are denominated in USD.
On the other hand, domestic producers are keeping prices quite high.
HRC
Riva in Italy - EUR 600 per tonne for base parity
ArcelorMittal in Spain - EUR 590 per tonne base parity
ThyssenKrupp and Salzgitter in Germany - EUR 620 per tonne to EUR 640 per tone for base
HRP
Italy - EUR 650 per tonne EXW for base
Spain - EUR 630 per tonne
Germany - Above EUR 650 per tonne for base
Although the stocks in the system are not that high but have enough assortments to allow buyers waiting and see next developments.
This week seems quite calm without many inquiries around. We''ll see if and when Turkish will come back buying scrap which will determine also the trend of pig iron. Not like 2008 but not what we would need to recover from the 2009 disaster.