Over the past two weeks, prices in the local Italian flat steel market have decreased by €12.5/mt on average, after about four months of stable or upward movement. As a result, local producers' domestic hot rolled coil (HRC) base prices are now at €540-550/mt ($670-682/mt), while domestic cold rolled coil (CRC) and hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil quotations are respectively at €620-630/mt ($769-781/mt) and €630-640/mt ($781-794/mt), all ex-works.
The moderate decrease is due to the fact that sentiment has worsened in the market as local buyers have started expecting prices to decrease and so they have reduced their purchases to what is strictly needed. Moreover, local buyers have high supplies since they had bought large volumes when prices were significantly lower at the end of last year, and they have also received or are receiving import material that they had bought from countries like Vietnam in September last year. At the same time, Italian flat steel producers' order books are looking good, with lead times that go into June and July for HRC. Finally, import offers are still lacking and not low enough to spur any significant interest in Italian buyers, and this is another reason why local producers are unwilling to let prices slip significantly. Accordingly, according to market sources, flat steel prices in Italy should stay at current levels for the moment.
€1 = $1.24