Brazil’s flat steel sales fall 6.6% in September

Brazilian flat steel distributors and service centres saw sales drop by 6.6% month-on-month in September, reaching 353,800 tonnes, local association Inda said on Thursday October 25.

Paragraph entered by Atlantic migration, in order for SteelFirst articles to display correctly on Metal Bulletin.

Last month’s sales declined by 9.1% compared with those in September 2011, from 389,400 tonnes.

Inda members purchased 340,800 tonnes of flat steel products in August, down by 9.7% over the previous month, but an increase of 3.1% year-on-year.

Distributors’ inventories fell by 1.4% month-on-month in September, to 949,300 tonnes. This volume represents 2.7 months’-worth of sales, according to the association.

Shipments of heavy plate amounted to 36,900 tonnes in September, a decrease of 7% over the previous month, while distributors’ purchases dropped by 34%, to 38,000 tonnes.

Heavy plate inventory levels therefore increased to 4.9 months’-worth of sales.

Between January and September, flat sales from Inda members increased by only 0.7% year-on-year, to 3.25 million tonnes, while purchases totalled 3.2 million tonnes, up by 4.1%.

For October, Inda expects both flat steel sales and purchases to increase by about 12%.

The Brazilian flat steel industry has still to experience a challenging outlook in October, but inventory levels may decline on there being more working days, Barclays Capital analyst Leonardo Corrêa said in a report this week.

“The inventory-to-shipments ratio should decrease to below historical levels of 2.4 [months’-worth of sales],” he noted.

What to read next
On Friday November 8, 2024, Fastmarkets published MB-STE-0232 Steel scrap No1 busheling, consumer buying price, delivered mill Chicago, $/gross ton.
Fastmarkets advises that, as of Friday November 8, certain monthly North American ferrous scrap assessments had yet to be settled.
Ahead of COP29, the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals (CETM) recommended a global traceability system, which experts told Fastmarkets will need to overcome challenges around data security, enforceability and stakeholder buy-in to be successful.
Aluminium market participants in the US anticipate stable business supported by continued tariffs and potential interest rate cuts, while industry sources in Europe and Latin America are watchful of potential new trade restrictions.
Donald Trump’s second term as US president is not likely to have too much of an impact on China’s electric vehicle (EV) and new energy markets, despite broader concerns over potential tariff hikes which might bring challenges to both China and the US, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday November 7.
Chinese authorities officially announced that they will be expanding the range of permitted recycled copper and aluminium imports from mid-November, but market participants Fastmarkets spoke to at a conference this week are not convinced that this will mean more material will be imported into the country in the short run.