The second half of November and the early days of December were characterized by surprisingly buoyant demand and unexpected price increases in the Italian domestic scrap market, said Assofermet, the association representing Italian distributors of scrap, raw materials, and steel products, in a new press release. Scrap availability, however, remains critical and raises concerns should production of finished products actually increase. Therefore, the general sentiment is cautiously optimistic.
Scrap prices also rose significantly internationally in November, registering an overall increase of $40-45/mt in Turkey, for example. Among the reasons for these rises were the slight improvement in demand for long products, low scrap availability, and significantly higher freight costs, Assofermet noted.
In contrast, the domestic and European stainless scrap markets saw steadily declining quotations in November in the wake of the trends of nickel and molybdenum prices. Low material availability was also evident in this segment.
As for pig iron, Assofermet said that the Italian market for refining pig iron saw largely unchanged prices while, internationally, there was a steady increase in the wake of scrap trends. Hematite cast iron prices also remained stable, despite the weak market and few transactions. There was also no change for ductile cast iron which remained firm at the quotations of a few weeks ago.
