Highlights

  • NW European HRC stood at EUR768/t ex-works on 11 Nov, off EUR1 after a sharp rise a day earlier, while the weekly price rose EUR10 to EUR770/t.
  • The 9 Nov Habas explosion in Turkey, ADI's Taranto hot-end shutdown, exhausted Import quotas and soaring energy costs have tightened supply.
  • Mills chase EUR790-820/t for Q1, but weak Demand and wary distributors cap how far deals can move.

European coil prices are parked at autumn highs as Supply shocks in Turkey and Italy collide with buyers who still do not want to restock.

What happened

Northern European hot-rolled coil is holding at its highest levels of the autumn. NW European HRC was assessed at EUR768/t ex-works on 11 November, down just EUR1 after a sharp rise the previous day, while Italy was flat at EUR758/t. In dollar terms that is about US$861/t, nearly 1.8 times China's US$485/t export price.

Over the past week the direction has been up. The weekly NW European ex-works coil price stood at EUR770/t on 6 November, up EUR10, with deals between EUR760 and EUR790/t and most at EUR770. A daily index was lower that day at EUR761.25/t, after slipping EUR10.50 over the week.

Mills want much more. ArcelorMittal's first-quarter target for HRC is EUR820/t delivered, which buyers see as "unworkable in the short term". A 1.1kt order for January production reportedly closed near EUR770/t. The mill target sits about 7% above today's spot level, which helps explain why trading stays thin.

Why it happened

Supply shocks are doing the heavy lifting. On 9 November an overhead crane fell into an electric-arc furnace at Habas' Aliaga works in Izmir, triggering an explosion that killed at least 17 people, according to later counts; early reports on 10 Nov put the toll at ten. The site has 4.5Mt a year of steelmaking capacity, and several Turkish mills withdrew offers, with the outage possibly lasting beyond two to three weeks.

Italy is losing a major producer. Acciaierie d'Italia has shut the hot area at Taranto after Italy's Court of Cassation rejected appeals, even as Arvedi and Jindal lodged binding bids for the plant. ADI produced about 2Mt in 2025, and buyers now need to replace that tonnage from inside the EU.

Imports cannot easily Fill the gap. Tighter tariff-rate quotas since July and CBAM costs have curbed foreign supply, and Turkey has no fourth-quarter HRC Quota left, with India down to about 3kt. Indian coil into Northern Europe rose US$10 to US$740/t CFR.

Energy is the other pillar. Front-month TTF gas briefly topped EUR100/MWh on 28 October for the first time since 2022. On 11 November Federacciai said Italian producers were suspending output because operating now means "accumulating costs that are extremely difficult to cover".

How it plays out

Demand is the weak link. Third-quarter apparent consumption is estimated to have fallen 11% year on year, and distributors may hold off until January or February. An Italian service centre said its demand was at least 15% below last year.

The winners are northern producers with spare capacity and secure energy, which can pick up customers displaced from Italy and Turkey. The losers are re-rollers that relied on ADI, now quoting tolling fees of EUR160-170/t that the market calls uneconomic, and end users facing higher coil bills.

WSD expects NW European prices to reach EUR780-800/t by year-end, even though mill margins of EUR157/t in October were the lowest since January. One German distributor told WSD buyers "will have to return to the market sooner than they are suggesting."

Next week, watch for a restart timeline at Habas, the scale of any Italian production halts, the TTF gas curve and whether January deals climb towards EUR790/t or stall around EUR770/t. A quick restart in Izmir would remove much of the recent support; a prolonged outage would strengthen the mills' hand.