EU importers used up some HRC quotas in the second quarter

European hot rolled coil (HRC) importers have increased activity in recent months due to a favorable price spread between imports and domestic supply, and have already exhausted some quotas. Kallanish reports about it.

According to data collected by Metal Consulting International for the Eurometal association, as of June 19, 2023, protective quotas for HRC for the second quarter in the other countries subgroup were exhausted. This sub-group covers imports from countries that do not have their own special quotas (countries other than Turkiye, India, South Korea, the UK and Serbia).

In general, in the second quarter of 2023, the quota for other countries was used for more than 1.1 million tons. In the first quarter, the indicator in this subgroup was less than 1 million tons, and at the end of the period, more than 20% of the allocated volumes were still available.

About 18% of the quotas for the second quarter were used during June 12-19. This may indicate that products ordered during the first quarter at competitive prices are only now arriving, and this trend may continue into the third quarter as new volumes become available. In addition, hot-rolled coils importers have already exhausted the quotas for Serbia and 75% of the available Indian volumes in the second quarter. Competitive HRC suppliers to Europe in recent months that do not have country-specific quotas have included Japan and Vietnam.

In April 2302, the import of Indian HRC to the EU increased by 30.6% – up to 159.9 thousand tons, writes Argus Media citing trade data. This is the highest level since October 2021. Egypt (+158% y/y) was the second in terms of the volume of supply of these products in this period, Japan was the third (+51.2% y/y). The import of hot-rolled coil from Indonesia also increased significantly. In general, the European Union imported 836.9 thousand tons of hot-rolled coil in April, which is 5.4% less than in April 2022, but 47% more than in March 2023.

As GMK Center reported earlier, world prices for hot-rolled coil were falling at the beginning of June 2023 – such a trend is observed, in particular, in the European market. Steelmakers in China are awaiting further steps from the government, Indian enterprises should take into account global trends.