The country produced 30.14mn t of crude stainless steel in 2020, up by 2.51pc from 2019.

Russian integrated steel producers NLMK, Severstal and MMK increased raw material production in 2020.

The Argus weekly domestic US HRC index was flat at $1,200/st ex-works Midwest last week. Lead times fell to 7-8 weeks from 8-9 weeks.

Urals-based MMK sold 5pc less steel in 2020, reaching 10.8mn t, of which 4.3mn t was hot-rolled coil (HRC), down by 3.8pc on the year.

The last increase was on 8 January, making this the fifth offer hike since mid-November last year of a total of €200/t.

U.S. Steel Corp. recently bought the remaining 50.1% of Big River Steel. The acquisition cost $774 million, while U.S. Steel spent about $700 million when it acquired a 49.9% stake in Big River Steel in November 2019.

Indian steelmaker JSW Steel aims to complete 5mn t/yr of expansion projects by the end of March, increasing its crude steelmaking capacity to 23mn t/yr.

However, there needs to be sufficient capacity in both the EU and UK quotas for this interim solution to be utilised.