ArcelorMittal hikes European coil prices again

Europe's largest steel producer ArcelorMittal has increased its official hot-rolled coil (HRC) offer by €100/t today to €1,400/t across the continent, as energy and scrap costs continue to increase.

The mill is targeting €1,500/t for cold-rolled coil (CRC) and €1,550 for hot-dip galvanised (HDG), both also up by €100/t since 10 March. ArcelorMittal has raised its prices by €430/t for HRC since the beginning of the month.

Production costs have increased in recent weeks, although this has stabilised to an extent this week. The EU announcement of a ban on Russian steel imports announced on 15 March will see supply constraints continue, although slab was spared, which has taken some of the heat out of the coil market. The impact of lower coil shipments also appears have to been priced in already, to some extent.

The European Commission announced yesterday that the safeguard quotas on steel products from the restricted countries of Russia and Belarus would be redistributed among other exporting countries. This may help to mitigate some of the supply-side price pressures: Turkey's quarterly quota has risen to 430,000t, up by more than 100,700t, while India's has increased by a similar amount to over 273,000t.

By Lizzy Lancaster