Italy’s scrap market mostly indicates stability in early April

After the downward trend recorded in the last week of March, the Italian domestic ferrous scrap market has mostly maintained a stable trend at the start of April. According to the lastest information collected, average prices in the Italian scrap market are as follows:

*Prices are delivered to customer, excluding VAT

According to the latest meeting of Italian scrap consumers' association Nuovo Campsider, in the whole of March average scrap prices went up by €10-15/mt ($13-20/mt), which is slightly less than in France and Germany. Nuovo Campsider's outlook for April is generally for a sideways to slightly downward trend.

Players in the Italian scrap market have told SteelOrbis that their views are not very different from those of steelmakers: while excluding the possibility of any price increase, they state a further decrease is possible, although some of them believe any decrease will not exceed €5/mt ($7/mt). Scrap collection volumes are scarce in line with lackluster Italian industrial activity, while the price gap between busheling scrap and heavy melting scrap (HMS) is very tight (€30/mt at most), and probably will not narrow any further.

Domestic long steel producers are trying to achieve a profit margin by reducing production costs in the absence of desired increases in finished steel product prices. However, scrap traders in Italy appear to have little space to lower their prices. Lackluster long steel demand has meant that most scrap bookings are focused on low-priced HMS quality. HMS quotations in Italy are characterized by firmness at the present time.