EU mill exports steel slab

A large European integrated steelmaker has sold slab for export because of weak coil demand and high energy costs.

"We will not match bulk import prices so better to sell slab instead," an executive at the mill told Argus.

Bigger European mills appear to be pumping out crude steel and slab, enabling them to capture gases that can be reused or sold into the market, while reducing coil rolling operations on low demand. Market leader ArcelorMittal said late last week that it would not indefinitely shut one of its Bremen blast furnaces as initially announced, but keep running it to maximise power generation.

One deal for slab was concluded around $560-570/t cfr Mena, sources said. This is substantially above Russia-origin pricing, which is around $520/t cfr, but not all buyers are willing to take Russian tonnes, even from non-sanctioned entities. Russian slab is still entering the European market too, although NLMK is the only real seller given sanctions on others.

Saudi Arabian slab offers into Turkey were around $550-560/t cfr last week.

The EU executive said large spot coil sales could only be concluded if they were in line with sub €700/t import offers, as demand has waned in recent days.

Europe does not regularly export slab, but duties on European hot-rolled coil (HRC) into some markets — such as Turkey — could lead to some European slab sales, while domestic mills look to reduce their surpluses.

By Colin Richardson