Apparent consumption of steel in Italy in the first 11 months of 2007 reached 36.502 million metric tons, up just 53,278 metric tons on the corresponding period of the previous year.
Breaking the figure down into the different categories, flats accounted for the lion's share with 17.710 million metric tons, down 2.2 percent on the same period in 2006. Of flat products, apparent consumption of hot rolled coils reached 5.6 million metric tons, down 10.1 percent year on year; meanwhile, apparent consumption of hot dip galvanized amounted to 3.6 million metric tons, up nine percent.
During the January-November 2007 period, apparent consumption of long products rose 1.8 percent year on year to 14.2 million metric tons. Of this figure, wire rod saw a rise of 2.9 percent to reach five million metric tons, followed by rebar which dropped 2.1 percent to 4.3 million metric tons.
Also during the period in question, apparent consumption of semi-finished steel in Italy rose 4.7 percent to 4.5 million metric tons.