Italian prices for cold rolled and hot-dipped galvanized coil are stable in transactions compared to last week. Higher-priced import offers have brought some stability to domestic material prices, even allowing some room for increase, local service centres and producers tell Kallanish.

The market is affected by overcapacity and lower consumption for both products due to the production slowdown in the country’s automotive sector. Domestic players had struggled to increase prices both during last year and at the start of 2020 because Italian prices have been influenced by generally lower import offers.

Material from India and Korea is good quality and often cheaper than from domestic sources. One service centre says that 90% of its coil stock is composed of imported CRC and HDG. There are Turkish offers for CRC at €545/tonne ($597/t) cfr while Korean material is being offered at €560/t cfr. These are considered too high, so prices for domestic material have risen month-on-month in January by an average €20/t, sources say.

Domestic HDG and CRC transaction prices are now at €530-540/t base ex-works whilst Italian mills are asking €540-550/t base ex-works. A local producer tells Kallanish that the market remains competitive despite the absence of imported material.