Three countries may exhaust their export quota for hot-rolled coils to the EU in October

Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan are likely to exhaust their quotas for duty-free supplies of 141,85 thousand tons of hot-rolled coils to the EU under the “other countries” category in early October. This is reported by Argus. Media.

The agency cites Global Trade Tracker data, according to which Japan exported almost 250 thousand tons of coils to the EU in June-July. In July, according to Arguscalculations, another 39 thousand tons were withdrawn from customs clearance. The volume of Japanese HRC in the ports of the bloc may more than double the quota.

In June-July, Vietnam exported more than 80 thousand tons of HRC, at least 65 thousand tons of which remained from the previous quota period. Therefore, the total volume of products from this country is slightly higher than the quota. It is likely that there are volumes of Vietnamese HRC that were not submitted to customs in July, and August exports may also arrive for October customs clearance.

It is expected that these products from Vietnam and Japan may be submitted for customs clearance on October 1, as importers see the risk of potential retroactive anti-dumping duties that could be levied as early as December 8.

No data on volumes from Egypt are available yet, but Argus estimates that 27 thousand tons were exported in July. The country has a shorter transit leverage, so it can continue to sell products to the bloc even in October-November without the risk of a duty.

In August of this year, the European Commission announced the launch of an anti-dumping investigation into imports of certain types of hot-rolled steel products from Egypt, India, Japan and Vietnam. Even before the investigation is launched, the European market expects potential retroactive duties on imports of hot-rolled coils.

Taiwan, which is not subject to the anti-dumping investigation, is also likely to exhaust its quota. In June-July, almost 150 thousand tons of HRC were supplied to the bloc from this country, and about 45 thousand tons were withdrawn from customs in July. As for the material from Taiwan, importers can use the recall in October and wait until January to clear it.

In addition, export data also show that in June-August, the bloc exported more than 280 thousand tons of HRC from Brazil and more than 70 thousand tons from China.

In January-July of this year, the EU imported record volumes of HRC – more than 6.2 million tons, which is about 400 thousand tons more than in the first 7 months of last year.

As GMK Center reported earlier, the EU’s anti-dumping investigation into four steel exporters could affect more than half of the bloc’s hot-rolled coil imports. In January-May 2024, these countries accounted for about 51% of HRC imports to the bloc. The total import volume amounted to almost 4.3 million tons.