European buyers expect shortage of HRC

Two fire incidents have occurred at ArcelorMittal's steelmaking facilities in the past two weeks.

The first affected blast furnace (BF) A with a capacity of 2.35 million tons per year in Gijon, Spain, and the second stopped operations at BF 4 in Dunkirk, France.

Earlier in the week, the company sent a warning letter to customers stating that delivery delays for flat steel in Europe are "inevitable" and that allowances for new orders will likely be reduced.

The company did not provide estimates of production losses from the outages. However, according to the information obtained, a shortage of 1 million tons of HRC and the highest supply shortage are expected in the June-August period.

ArcelorMittal declined to comment on the matter.

Sources said that scheduled maintenance work at Tata Steel IJmuiden in the Netherlands and ArcelorMittal Dabrowa Gornicza in Poland, as well as unscheduled shutdowns in Spain and France, are expected to increase HRC prices in Europe.