Producers across Europe have continued to increase their domestic offer prices for heavy steel plate despite the slow recovery of demand, market sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday January 20.
Buying activity has started to recover since the year-end holidays across Europe. Market sources, however, questioned whether demand would become strong enough to support the price rise sought by producers.
"Demand for plate is regular in small to medium-sized lots," an Italian source said.
"It is not clear yet how strong the real demand and the speculative demand are. Stockists and end-users are trying to secure delivery times and, even more important, prices. But demand is mainly driven by distributors trying to fill gaps in their stocks," a German trader said.
"Cutting centers are reporting the start of better order intake, which makes me a bit more optimistic, but so far most plate-related companies are still on 'short work'," he added.
Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel domestic plate, 8-40mm,...