After the brief Easter holiday, the situation in the Italian flat steel market is unchanged with prices continuing to remain stable. Domestic producers continue to offer hot rolled coil (HRC) at the base price of €520-530/mt ($686-700/mt), cold rolled coil (CRC) at €600-610/mt ($792-805/mt) and hot dip galvanized (HDG) at €570-580/mt ($752-766/mt), all ex-works.
Demand remains weak, but prices have not fallen any further as they are already quite low, especially compared with prices in the rest of Europe and worldwide. For this reason, import activity is slack, also affected by the unfavorable exchange rate and the fact that transportation costs have increased significantly compared to a few months ago.
Domestic flat steel service centers have told SteelOrbis that most purchases are aimed at meeting immediate needs and that their warehouses are flexible in their operations. Orders are increasingly being processed on a just-in-time basis.
€1 = $ 1.32