Spanish rebar market prices are continuing to rise since December. The construction sector is showing signs of improvement and is expected to increase demand for long products in the first quarter, Kallanish understands.
“The improvement in longs consumption will be moderate since the industry uses the last quarter of 2023 as a reference, when activity and investment remained stagnant,” a Valencia region construction company comments. “Demand growth will not materialise in the way that we expected, but there are already positive signs coming from both private and public construction for stable long steel purchases in Q1 in most of the southern regions.”
Meanwhile, some companies in northern Spain believe the government’s decision-making for industry development and large infrastructure investment has been greatly delayed.
“There remain many unknowns regarding how the commitments that the new administration has made to secure constitutional support, especially from the Catalan nationalists, will affect the sector in general, and this keeps most of the industry indecisive to advance new projects,” a local source observes.
Rebar suppliers say their order books are gradually increasing. “Values are moving up since December in line with the international market. The new levels seem stable and I don’t think they will vary much for the rest of the month. The market situation does not yet allow us to increase our sales margins as we would like, but they are still better than a month ago,” a market participant observes.
16mm material is currently being offered at €390-395/tonne ($424.7-430.1/t) base. Including €262/t size extras and loading expenses, transaction values are at €652-657/t ex-works. Some offers have also been heard at €660/t delivered.
Meanwhile, the price of 6mm mesh with 150x150mm dimensions stands at €179/square meter delivered. The other largely sold quality, 8mm, is offered at €302/m2 on the same basis.
The monthly index for Spanish domestic rebar prices (B-500 SD 12 meter/12mm) increased in December compared to that in the previous month, according to data published by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce. The index stood at 170.62, up 2.53% over November. However, it was 7.9% weaker year-on-year. The index is based on a value of 100 in 2014.
Todor Kirkov Bulgaria
