Steel prices will suffer further price increases.

According to the distributors, price will average high of 8% from today The steel plants should start the recovery in prices, after being impacted by the increase in imports last year, starting today. As distributors of information, tables of rebar and steel nãoplanos should have an average increase of 8%.

 The reasons were the high increase in securities traded in the international market, which are already above those of the country. With the invasion of imported steel in the domestic market last year, the groups came to reduce steel prices by up to 25%.

According to the director of Açomec Iron and Steel, located in Northwest Capital, Christian Alder Fonseca, no formal announcement about the increase in prices. But the distributor was told she had until yesterday to make requests to the gaucho Gerdau group, to stay out of the increase.

As the entrepreneur, the high should be transferred immediately to customers. Discounts in 2010 ended up generating losses for distributors, since there was a loss in value of inventories. For Alder, movement occurred in February by the Gerdau has been driven by continued demand for rebar. "The construction industry remains strong," he said.

Nevertheless, he said, the segment of non-flat, used by the industrial sector, such as angle brackets and tubes, the demand was low in January. "But there are signs that it will reactivate," he said.

According to the CEO of FREF Metalplus S / A, Christiano da Cunha Freire, the tendency is to withdraw the discounts granted by the mills in 2010 because of rising prices in international market. "Prices of imported goods are already 15% above the national steel," he said.

With the demand of the building heated, steel and leverage should increase prices for rebar

Costs - The scene occurred today, the president of the distributor who owns unit count, the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte (RMBH) said that the discounts should be phased out by Brazilian plants. Rumors were also reported by high site specialized in sector minerometalúrgico Infomet, distributors who consulted on the increase. According to sources, the increases would be felt as from today. Gerdau was contacted by this reporter, but by the time of publishing the steel group had no comment.

Besides the high prices on the international market, plants face a significant cost pressure because the main inputs used by the industry went through successive adjustments. Iron ore, for example, reached about 130% increase in 2010. Last year, mining companies have corrected the tables and left the quarterly model of annual contracts.

As experts have said before, with the rise seen in the international market and the recovery of the prices and margins, the possibility of resumption of production to pre-crisis levels. Nevertheless, the use of most of the installed capacity of Bra, which is currently 47 million tons per year, depends on maintenance of the internal market and increase in imports.
 
In 2010 domestic production of crude steel reached 32.812 million tons. The volume is 20.8% higher than in 2009 (26.506 million tons, but is still 2.6% below the record set in 2008 of 33.7 million tonnes, according to data from Brazil Steel Institute (IABr).

Landings records last year made it impossible to resume production to pre-crisis levels. Imports grew by 154.2% in 2010 compared to the previous year, from 2.331 million tons to 5.928 million tonnes. Landings were boosted by plan segment, which increased 172% on the same basis of comparison.

Source: Journal of Commerce