According to market sources, domestic drawing quality (SAE1006) wire rod prices in Italy are now between €510/mt ($576/mt) and €530/mt ($599/mt) delivered to customer. While they were at €530-540/mt in mid-February, transaction prices in the past few weeks have never reached the higher end of this range, but have actually slowly decreased to the lower levels.
Last week, local Italian producers hinted at price increases, mainly due to the implementation of the EU safeguard quota and the rapid exhaustion of the wire rod import quota assigned to Turkey, a major wire rod supplier for the EU market. However, domestic wire rod prices have not increased due to the very low local demand. Moreover, the fact that other suppliers have started to step into the market has hindered other producers from announcing price increases. According to market sources, wire rod prices should trend sideways until the end of this month.
€1 = $1.13