Policy, demand curbs EU HRC quota utilisation

Market: Metals
02/07/25

A minimum of 280,000t of hot-rolled coils (HRC) have been put forward for customs clearance in the EU as of yesterday, safeguard quota data tracked by Argus shows.

This is a sharp slowdown in HRC arrivals, after 552,550t were cleared in the last reporting quarter and about 16,000t were pending on 4 April.

These numbers are unlikely to be met this time round even though July arrival volumes will grow in the coming days.

The under-utilisation of the HRC safeguards can be attributed to the imposition of anti-dumping duties on Japanese, Egyptian and Vietnamese coil, along with the tightening of the safeguard mechanism. These events occurred during the course of March and thus only had a mild impact on the quota re-set the following month.

The second reason for a decrease in July arrivals stems from a lack of demand in Europe for steel which started to worsen around April. Countries such as Egypt, Vietnam and Japan have no pending HRC to clear at the time of writing, as a result. Just four months before, these three countries cleared a total of 70,000t days after the quota re-set.

Taiwan and South Korea are the only importers to have more than 100,000t of material awaiting allocation, with the former already exceeding its allotted allocation of 112,717t.

No HRC was put forward for clearance under the other countries bracket.

Furthur downstream, Turkey is the only country to exceed its cold-rolled quota on 1 July. Vietnam has exhausted its allocation of 4A and 4B galvanised material, similar to China, which also exhausted its 4B safeguard by over 20,000t.

By Carlo Da Cas

EU HRC custom clearance as of 1 July*			t
		Awaiting allocation	Quota allocation

Turkey		19,430	402,733
India		255	227,782
South Korea		115,048	163,078
UK		117	140,943
Serbia		775	144,088
Other countries	Total	0	867,051
	Egypt	0	112,717
	Vietnam	0	112,717
	Japan	0	112,717
	Taiwan	128,722	112,717
	Australia	16,304	112,717
	Switzerland	0	112,717
	US	0	112,717
	Libya	0	112,717
	Canada	0	112,717
* Pending final clearance volumes
- European Commission

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Policy, demand curbs EU HRC quota utilisation

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