Hot rolled coil import offers into Europe have softened somewhat since the end of last week, mainly from Asian sources. EU import quotas for the product remain available, Kallanish notes.

Indian sources indicate that HRC offers into Europe are at some €1,100-1,150/tonne ($1,200-1,255) cfr Europe for large orders. A European trader confirms the slight reduction in offers but warns that these might prove to be a boomerang if duties will need to be paid on the arrival of material in the third quarter.

Another trader says Japanese HRC is offered at €1,200/t cfr southern Europe. He adds that the market has mostly stabilised rather than softened. “Turkish mills, for example, are not too competitive as they remain at above €1,200/t cfr Europe,” he comments.

New EU safeguard quotas have become available since the beginning of April, with higher allocations for other countries due to the redistribution of quotas from Russia and Belarus. HRC quota allocations do not seem to be under pressure at present, with quotas still largely available for Turkish, Indian and South Korean material.

More pressure is reported on other coil products, with China having exhausted its Q2 quota for metallic coated sheet and India for organic coated sheet. Indian cold rolled coil import quotas are also in a critical situation, with only 60,000 tonnes still available on Thursday 7 April.

The lack of trade with Ukraine could become a problem for flats supply in Europe going forward. The country has a large allocation of safeguard quotas for quarto plates and CRC. According to the official European system, virtually none of the newly-allocated quotas for Ukraine were used during the first week of April. In Q1, Ukraine used up more than half of its allocation of over 200,000t for quarto plate.