Davis Index’ northern Spain HMS 1&2 (80:20) and shredded ferrous scrap small bulk indices edged €1/mt ($1/mt) lower over the past week to €221/mt and €231/mt cfr, respectively, on Friday.
Market participants conveyed mixed messages this week, with Spanish mills citing appreciation of the euro for nudging ferrous scrap import prices slightly lower. The EU single currency has surged 3.67pc to $1.13 per euro from $1.09 on May 26, driven largely by positive sentiment around the ECB’s €1.35tn Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP).
Meanwhile, some UK suppliers believe that currency fluctuations are unlikely to have much of a material impact given that some Spanish mills are in need of volumes.
This is likely to reconcile with anecdotal evidence from market participants claiming that Celsa Barcelona has been paying above market prices to secure tons. Grupo Celsa’s steel-making facility in Castellbisbal, near Barcelona, suffered an outage on May 4 because of a fire on one of the plant’s two continuous casters.
As a result, inbound US-origin deep-sea ferrous scrap cargoes to the mill were diverted to the company’s other Spanish steel-making facility, Celsa Nervacero in Bilbao.
Davis Index’ UK small bulk ferrous scrap 1&2 (80:20) and shredded indices dropped by €4/mt over the same period to €205/mt and €215/mt fob, respectively, on June 6.
(€1 = $ 1.13)