Cold Rolled Steel Coil: EU Revises Turkish AD Rates
European cold rolled steel coil prices held flat in the week to 23 October while the product beneath them moved. The Northwest Europe CRC assessment stayed at €865/t ex-works as hot rolled coil (HRC) rose €10/t to €760/t, McCloskey by OPIS data published by EUROMETAL on 26 October shows. The cold rolled premium narrowed to about €105/t — the number to plan around, not the headline.
The question for buyers in Germany, Italy and Benelux is no longer whether the steel coil price will rise. It is which cost layer — quota, duty or carbon — reaches the invoice first.
Why the floor is policy, not demand
Distributors are still working down stock bought in June, before the stricter post-July import regime. Apparent demand has not recovered, destocking is running long, and buyers are filling portfolio gaps only, sources told EUROMETAL. Yet first-quarter HRC offers have reached €790–800/t delivered, and some mills claim to be sold out for Q1.
The floor is Regulation (EU) 2026/1384, in force since 1 July 2026. It caps duty-free steel entering the EU at 18,345,922 tonnes a year, roughly 47% below the 2024 safeguard quotas, doubles the out-of-quota duty to 50% and stacks it on top of any anti-dumping or countervailing measure. Since 1 October importers must also evidence the country of melt and pour, normally through the mill test certificate (European Commission; Crowell & Moring, 9 July 2026).
Quota access is where a China steel supplier and its EU customer meet. China holds country-specific tariff-rate quotas in 22 sub-categories but is excluded from the residual pool in most of them, so once the named quota is used there is no fallback. Allocation is quarterly and first-come, first-served, which makes shipment timing a commercial term rather than a logistics detail.
The cold rolled detail that changed this month
On 16 October the Commission circulated a revision of the anti-dumping duties due on cold rolled flat steel from Turkey after Tatmetal and Borçelik challenged the calculations: Borçelik from 9.70% to 7.80%, Tatmetal from 5.60% to 3.00%, other cooperating companies from 7.30% to 4.90% (Dow Jones Energy via EUROMETAL, 26 October). Publication in the Official Journal is expected before end-October, with duties applying from publication.
A few points on one origin is not market-moving by itself. It matters because cold rolled is the thinnest-margin link in the chain: €105/t of premium has to cover rolling, annealing, skin-passing, coating and freight, so any shift in import parity is absorbed there first.
Downstream is mixed rather than weak. EU new car registrations rose 9.3% year on year in September to 971,048 units (ACEA via SteelOrbis, 26 October), though registrations include imported vehicles and do not convert one-for-one into EU mill orders.
What to buy, and to which specification
Cold rolled and coated coil
For appliance, switch cabinet, furniture and door frames, cold rolled steel sheet and coil is commonly supplied in DC01, DC03 and DC04, or SPCC for general forming, at 0.3–3.0 mm and 600–1,500 mm width, in coil weights of roughly 3–15 t, subject to mill availability. Specify surface quality, oiling, edge condition and thickness tolerance in writing; those four decide scrap rate more than price per tonne. Full coil data sits on the cold rolled steel coil product page. For corrosion resistance, galvanized steel coil in DX51D+Z at 120–275 g/m² zinc, and prepainted steel coil for visible panels, follow the same discipline.
Medium and heavy plate, and cut parts
Plate shows the widest spread. Italian re-rollers settled S235JR at €740–750/t ex-works, while German domestic offers ran €850–890/t ex-works and S355JR around €900/t delivered (McCloskey by OPIS, 23 October). A German distributor told EUROMETAL that “real demand did not improve, but cutting centres and stockists need to buy”, with lead times lengthening. A gap that wide is the best argument for shortlisting more than one steel plate supplier before committing Q1 tonnage. Medium and heavy steel plate in S235JR and S355JR is commonly supplied from 8 mm to 150 mm, with Z15/Z25/Z35 through-thickness options where the design requires them; steel plate cutting parts cut and bevelled to drawing remove the double handling that costs most on thick sections.
Electrical steel
Transformer and motor laminations sit outside the construction cycle and are less exposed to commodity destocking. CRGO electrical steel for wound cores is commonly supplied in 0.23–0.35 mm gauges in M3–M6 equivalent grades, subject to mill allocation, and is better booked against a named project than a price view.
A supplier’s view: quote the certificate, not the promise
Three habits separate a clean Q1 2027 delivery from an expensive argument.
- Price the certificate, not just the coil. A steel coil supplier quoting into the EU should name the melt-and-pour country on the quotation, not three weeks after the order; ask for the heat number and mill test certificate before the proforma.
- Model two landed costs. Run every quote inside quota and at the 50% rate, then add CBAM. OPIS estimated default-value CBAM cost above €200/t on Chinese slab at a certificate price of €80/t; verified emissions may be lower, but the working capital is real.
- Split the tonnage. Two shipments in two quota quarters beat one cargo that clears on the wrong side of a quota line, and reduce coil-weight and tolerance drift when a mill re-sequences its programme.
We trade cold rolled, hot rolled, galvanized and prepainted coil, low-alloy coil, plate, cut parts and electrical steel from established Chinese mills including Baosteel, Anshan and Wuhan, for steel structures, switchgear, power distribution, appliances and automotive parts. The grades above are commonly supplied and always subject to mill availability and the final mill test certificate.
Next step
Building a Q1 2027 requirement? Send the drawing, grade, gauge and destination port; we will reply with a specification-matched offer, an indicative landed cost and the document set your customs broker will ask for. Start with the product range, read about our company, or contact us directly.