European hot-rolled coil buyers face a shortage of steel and have little alternative but to accept offer prices from domestic mills, market sources said on Tuesday May 18.
Since steelmakers have largely stayed out of the spot market, the number of completed deals remains small for now although demand both from end consumers and from distributors remains strong.Distributors, however, have become increasingly cautious in their purchase planning because they prefer not to build stocks of high-priced coil, especially given that steelmakers...