Demand in the Italian domestic merchant bar market is slack, while high production costs are providing support for local prices. While producers’ base prices for domestic merchant bar in Italy are at €130-140/mt ($153-165/mt) ex-works, the local market leader has lately increased its sale prices to €150/mt ($177/mt) ex-works. As a result, the range of merchant bar prices in the local Italian market has increased to €130-150/mt ($153-177/mt) ex-works, but no deals have been concluded at the upper end of this range.
In general, Italian merchant bar suppliers are unwilling to decrease their prices due to the high costs of materials such as electrodes and refractaries, and also because local scrap prices have stabilized after decreasing moderately at the beginning of October.
Meanwhile, demand looks stronger in the export markets. Sources have told SteelOrbis that demand is recovering in the German market, in part thanks to the fact that some local producers have chosen to concentrate on the production of special steels, and so competition has weakened in the market. Italian merchant bar offers to the German market are at €160-170/mt ($189-201/mt) delivered to customer.
*In the Italian market, price extras can vary in the range of €410-610/mt for domestic sales and in the range of €410-620/mt for foreign markets, depending on dimension and product.
€1 = $1.18