Contango steepens in NW EU HRC market

The northwest European hot-rolled futures market continues to move into a steeper contango, as end users look to lock in forward prices which are low compared with their physical contract offers.

October-December traded at €890/t and €885/t today on the CME Group's north European hot-rolled coil (HRC) contract, at huge premiums of €130.25/t and €125.25/t to the underlying Argus spot index, which was €759.75/t on Wednesday. A first-quarter/second-quarter spread also traded at €895/t and €910/t on Wednesday.

The contango structure, where futures prices trade at a premium to spot, enables service centres to buy physical HRC at current spot levels and sell higher-priced forward paper to protect their margins.

It also allows steelmakers to lock in prices that would be hard to achieve in today's physical market. As most service centres are preoccupied with managing their inventories during seasonally slower demand, it is highly unlikely they would pay €890/t or €885/t for HRC today. As a result, European mills are selling spot tonnes for August and September rolling around €750-760/t, and substantially below for large buyers in some instances. These sales have pulled the Argus index down by more than €53/t since 2 August.

Asked if he would sell physical HRC for the first quarter at €895/t, one European steelmaker said "yes". Another said he would definitely go short on paper.

Despite the spot market weakening in recent months, producers managed to secure rollovers for their July-December contracts, which are around €1,000/t, +/- €50/t, depending on the mill and buyer. They may well look for similar levels for January-June contracts next year, depending on spot market developments, meaning the forward curve could still look attractive.

By Colin Richardson