Feralpi halts longs’ production at Lonato

Italian longs’ producer Feralpi tells Kallanish that it is preparing to halt production at its main mill in Lonato del Gardo as from Monday 16 March. The company is headquartered in the Brescia area in Italy, in a region heavily affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

The company is the latest longs producer in northern Italy to announce a halt in production. The decision has been taken to join the fight to stop the spread of coronavirus in Italy, although not required by the existing legal measures in place.

The Lonato mill will be closed, with only a small number of workers to oversee the security of the site. Other plants of the group will not close immediately but the situation will be monitored.

The Lonato del Garda EAF-based mill is the biggest of the group in Italy. The company also operates EAF-based steelmaking and rolling lines in Germany and France.

With this latest announcement by Feralpi it is clear that Northern Italian longs supplier are taking the situation very seriously, halting production in most cases, particularly in the Brescia area. As demand for long products reduces in Italy due to the current lock-down in place, the slowdown in production could well support prices in the market during the coming months. This would be due to reduced output and lower product availability when the situation returns to normal, Kallanish notes.