Overcapacity in the domestic Italian rebar market could be a problem in the medium to long term, possibly amplified by the loss of demand from Algeria, Andrea Floreani, sales manager at Italian long steel producer Pittini, has told Metal Bulletin.
"Algeria is the end of a good movie - and hardly any other export market could substitute for it in such volumes," Floreani said late last month.Algeria's rebar market has been changing over the past few years, with growing domestic production gradually replacing imported rebar volumes."Algeria was once importing around 2.60 million tonnes [per year], and Italian and Spanish mills together supplied around 2.20 million tpy of this. In good times, such as 2015, Italy exported 1.20 million tonnes of rebar to Algeria when the internal consumption of Italy was 1.50 million tonnes," Floreani said."It's a very complex situation. Algerian demand has helped Italian and Spanish companies to keep on rolling at good production levels during the past eight years, despite the huge loss of internal market demand," he added.Metal Bulletin's weekly domestic price assessment for Southern European rebar on Wednesday May 9 was ?,?490-520 ($585-621) per tonne delivered. The...