By Felipe Peroni / March 27, 2018 / www.metalbulletin.com /
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Brazilian steelmaker Companhia Sider??rgica Nacional (CSN) is negotiating with authorities in the United States to obtain quotas to export slab, tinplate and "some volumes" of hot-rolled coil without tariffs linked to the Section 232 investigation.
"Negotiations are at full steam, and [the US] will apply voluntary restraint agreements - country by country," CSN commercial executive director Luis Fernando Martinez said on Tuesday March 27.
If exempted, CSN's hot-rolled coil exports would be sent for further rolling in the company's US facility in the state of Indiana.
"Brazil will likely solve this [issue] in two or three weeks, eventually accepting
quotas, like South Korea," chief executive officer Benjamin Steinbruch said.
On Thursday March 22, the
US government decided to delay imposing the 25% tariff on steel imports from Brazil and other countries. The suspension will last for a minimum period of 30 days while negotiations are ongoing.
Meanwhile, CSN is planning to divert to the Brazilian domestic market volumes of zinc-coated steel products it had been sending to the US, because the company expects the domestic market to continue improving.
"In 2017, we exported around 370,000 tonnes [of zinc-coated steel products] to the US that will return to the [Brazilian] local market this year," Martinez said.
In total, CSN expects to sell 1.2 million tonnes of zinc-coated products to Brazilian buyers in 2018, compared with 818,000 tonnes last year, according to Martinez. CSN also expects shipment volumes to the domestic market to account for around 80-85% of total steel sales this year.
In the fourth quarter 2017, in contrast, the national market accounted for 61% of CSN's total sales volumes.
"This is the year of the domestic market," Martinez said.