According to the independent steel industry analyst MEPS, European stainless steel purchasing has slowed down to a level lower than market expectations starting from April this year.

Specifically, the demand from end-users has slowed, and distributors’ purchasing has been at a standstill as well. Therefore, inventories have greatly hiked as a large volume of materials that were ordered earlier this year started to arrive.

Market participants said that the inventory is very sufficient until the end of this year if the market continues going with sluggish demand in the second half of the year.

However, some market experts remained optimistic about the possible recovered demand this September.