Over the past week, Romania’s sole flat steel producer, which has yet to begin production, has begun to offer and sell some hot rolled coil (HRC) to Romanian flat steel spot traders for January shipment. Market participants, however, claim that the sole supplier is selling from stocks at lower price levels in an attempt to gauge the response from demand in the market.
“The sole producer is now offering but not producing, and we do not know when they are going to start the furnace. We signed a deal with them after they promised to ship in January and got an aggressive price of under €600/mt CPT,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
Meanwhile, in the flat steel spot market, traders have decided to maintain last week’s offers since market activity remains slow. However, one of the major traders’ price increases have affected the market, and some other traders have also attempted to raise their offer prices but with no success in terms of demand.
Currently, local traders are quoting the same prices as last week for hot and cold rolled sheet at €715-735/mt ex-warehouse and €820-835/mt ex-warehouse, respectively. Though difficult given the current conditions, certain traders have attempted to raise prices for hot and cold rolled sheets to around €740-750/mt ex-warehouse and €850-860/mt ex-warehouse, respectively.
In the import market, while no deals have been reported, offers from Ukraine for hot rolled sheets and cold rolled sheets have remained unchanged at €650-660/mt DAP and €740-750/mt DAP, respectively. Meanwhile, HRC offers from Turkish mills have declined by $10/mt from last week, with $555-575/mt FOB and freight costs of around €25/mt. As a result, offers for delivery to Romania are €550-570/mt CFR, down from €560-580/mt CFR last week.