The European rebar market registered an uptrend in prices over the past week, with the rise in scrap prices and in demand seen as the main reasons behind this trend. Also, it will be recalled that the initial uptrend in Turkey played a part in sparking corresponding trends in the European rebar markets. However, a similar rising tendency has not been observed on the demand side in Europe.
In southern Europe, producers have been increasing their prices in both the local and export markets. A producer in Spain increased its rebar price to €400/mt delivered to customer in the middle of the last week. This increase had an immediate impact in Portugal where prices also started to rise. Meanwhile, rebar base prices in Italy have increased to €170-180/mt ex-works. Towards the end of last week, further news of price increases was heard from Greece, with producers in this country raising their prices by €40/mt. The rises in the prices of scrap and of imported rebar are considered to be the main reasons behind all these abovementioned increases. At the same time, export offers from the European markets have also been on the rise. In general, rebar export offers given from southern European countries last week rose to the range of €360-380/mt last week. It is said that the increase trends in these countries will continue for a while. However, the important point is whether the higher offer price levels will gain acceptance. It is also possible that deals may be found at lower levels depending on customer and tonnage. Although some activity is being observed on the stockists' side, end-user demand is still not at the desired levels.
On the eastern Europe side, producers have been following a similar upward trend, increasing their price little by little. Some slight demand improvement has also been observed in eastern Europe. Price levels in the local Romanian and Bulgarian markets are still being influenced by the Turkish export offers. Producers in Latvia are also upping their prices; however, it is not clear that increases will be accepted in this country.
In addition to price increases, uptrends on the demand side are being observed in Egypt, Libya, UAE, Yemen and Iraq. However, demand in Europe and the rest of the Middle East remains at insufficient levels. It will become clearer in the coming days how the price increases will affect the levels of demand.