Holidays slow down Italy’s domestic scrap market in April

Amid several holidays extending into long weekends, scrap trading in Italy has been slow since the beginning of April. Amid scarce bookings, the general range of domestic scrap prices has remained stable, while in some cases the offers received by scrap suppliers have indicated small reductions on the upper end. Following Easter, Italy is getting ready for another official holiday on April 25 and then May 1. Hence, producers are reported to be cutting production. One Italian source said, “Price bids given by Italian steel mills to northern European scrap suppliers [Germany and France] have mostly remained stable since March. But since then, very few deals from these countries to Italy have been done for import materials.”

Meanwhile, “No significant reductions are expected,” said Assofermet, the association representing Italian distributors of scrap, raw materials, and steel products, in a press release.  “It is necessary, however, to point out that steel mills, especially producers of wire rod and rebar, have seen their sales orders fall and difficulties in sustaining prices, probably due to uncertainties about the developments of the NRRP [Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan], confirming the fact that several construction sites related to this plan have stopped and numerous tenders for future works have been lost,” the Assofermet stated.

As a result, SteelOrbis’ range of reference prices for local scrap prices in Italy are standing as below:

Prices include delivery and exclude VAT.