[SMM Steel] Turkish Rebar Softens: Spot Trading Stalls as Low-Priced Trader Offers Pressure Mill Quotes

[Europe] European hot-rolled coil (HRC) producers are offering price concessions in the Spanish market to ease sales pressure stemming from sluggish domestic demand, with northern mills in particular increasingly adopting a "volume-over-price" strategy. In terms of pricing, Northwest European HRC ex-works prices dropped by 4 EUR/tonne to 730 EUR/tonne EXW (829 USD/tonne), while the Italian ex-works price held steady at 736 EUR/tonne EXW (836 USD/tonne). On the transaction front, a recent order of approximately 1,000 tonnes was concluded for delivery to Spain at 743 EUR/tonne DDP (844 USD/tonne), while a growing number of mills have widened their negotiation margins for December rolling schedules. In the Italian domestic market, as service centers still hold substantial volumes of lower-cost inventories while downstream demand remains persistently depressed, higher-priced spot transactions have proven difficult to conclude. In the import sector, market appeal has diminished noticeably, with overseas exporters reporting dormant booking activity for the EU; beyond excessively long lead times from the Far East, heightened buyer concerns regarding compliance with "melted-and-poured" origin traceability rules have further exacerbated the wait-and-see sentiment. Notably, Turkish HRC offers to Italy were largely concentrated at 560–590 EUR/tonne CFR Italy (635–670 USD/tonne, excluding anti-dumping duties).

Indian Railways has approved doubling of the 6 km Barbil–Bolanikhadan section under Southeastern Railway of Odisha at a cost of INR 122 Cr. The single line stretch now carries about 9 million tonnes of freight a year, entirely high-grade iron ore and pellets moving from SAIL's Bolani mines and private sidings to steel plants and ports. Once doubled, it can handle an extra 8.9 million tonnes annually and reduce freight train delays. Part of the "Energy, Mineral and Cement Corridor," the project aims to prevent congestion ahead of SAIL's mine expansion and new port and plant capacity.

According to an SMM survey, as of September 31, the operating rate of steel mills using externally purchased billets that mainly produce construction steel stood at 22.58%, up 0.37 percentage points MoM and up 9.01 percentage points YoY.