Despite the lessening of domestic demand for merchant bars in Italy in recent weeks, prices continue to remain stable - sources in the market report.
A slackening of demand is being observed in the Italian merchant bar market. After a very positive start to the year in terms of sales volumes, in recent weeks there has been a slowdown in demand, both from distributors and from end-users. With regard to apparent demand, the decline is probably due to the increase in warehouse stocks, which has caused some traders to adopt a more prudent approach to placing orders.
On the other hand, however, the Italian steel mills are still handsomely booked for the time being, especially due to the demand from abroad (with Germany and the central/eastern European countries at the top of the list), and this permits them to handle with greater ease the drop in domestic demand. The result is a situation of basic stability as regards quotation levels, which have only seen very slight movements in recent days.
Looking at the prospects for the near future, the market players who were interviewed said that they expect apparent demand to pick up within the next four to five weeks and to return to the usual levels for the season. As regards quotations, traders said that they do not expect any great changes or upheavals in the immediate future.