A major distributor in southeast Brazil told SteelOrbis that he is still selling rebar at the same price, BRL3,356/mt, ($1,062/mt), CFR, full taxes conditions for the CA-50, 10mm thickness product, following a 12 percent increase from April.
According to the source, sales in volume so far in the year went down by around 30 percent, reflecting the overall downturn in the civil construction sector, chiefly in works commissioned by the government and linked to infrastructure.
“The large volumes are usually sold to infrastructure works, which are almost entirely halted,” he said, adding that large housing programs, also government sponsored, have also been reduced.
The source mentioned that the demand of rebar for the construction of single stage, small houses, usually commissioned by the owner to small contractors, is relatively stable, but in this case the problem is the small volumes involved: “volumes in such cases are negotiated in kilograms, rather than tons,” he said.
When questioned if the low priced rebar imported from Turkey are a threat to the sales of local producers, he said that such import volumes are small in relation to the size of the market, while the price paid by the final client for the Turkish product is not much different from the price they pay for the domestic product.
In April, Brazil imported 41,100 mt of rebar from Turkey, at an average FOB price of $514/mt.
1 US$ = BRL 3.16