According to market sources, producers' base prices for domestic merchant bar in Italy are at €130-140/mt ($152-163/mt) ex-works. Local buyers, after buying large volumes at the beginning of this year amid the rising trend of merchant bar prices, have instead kept destocking in the months of March, April and, particularly, in May, as they were convinced that raw material prices would decrease.
According to sources among producers, scrap prices have decreased in the local Italian market, but not significantly. However, due to low demand, merchant bar prices have been slowly decreasing since March, after reaching the year-to date peak of €160/mt. Currently, due to slack demand and uncertainties caused by economic and political factors, local buyers are mostly in wait-and-see mode, and keep buying only what they strictly need.
In the Italian market, price extras can vary in the range of €410-610/mt ($480-713/mt) for domestic sales, depending on dimension and product.
€1 = $1.17