In the Italian domestic rebar market, local producers’ prices have decreased by an average of €7.5/mt week on week to €365-370/mt ($398-403/mt) ex-works, while trading activity continues to be extremely sluggish.
Furthermore, the Italian rebar market is affected negatively by the lack of rebar exports to Algeria, since Algeria has still not released rebar import licenses. According to sources, this week Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria’s interim trade minister, has met with Algerian importers and promised them that the import licenses will be released soon. Meanwhile, rebar prices in the Algerian market have reached very high levels.
Due to the absence of their main export market, Italian rebar producers have started to turn to other overseas markets such as the US, Canada and Mexico, but these are not able to replace Algeria in terms of volumes. For this reason, and because Italian rebar producers have very high stocks, market sources do not believe that Italian rebar prices can increase in the short term, though Italian rebar prices are currently significantly lower compared to international rebar prices.
€1 = $1.09