Brazilian apparent steel consumption was 1.72 million tonnes in October, up by 3.70% year-on-year from 1.66 million tonnes in the corresponding month in 2017, national steel association Instituto A??o Brasil said on Friday November 23.
Demand for flat steel grew in an annual comparison, but long steel was down on the same basis. This confirmed that the recovery in the long products sector in the country was still inconsistent.Flat steel consumption was 1.07 million tonnes in October, up by 8.10% year-on-year from 989,000 tonnes. Long steel use, however, fell by 3.70% to 647,000 tonnes, from 666,000 tonnes in the same month of 2017."It is still [too] early to call [the slowdown in long steel demand] a trend, but we would expect a stronger recovery for long steel [no earlier than] in 2019," analysts Leonardo Correa and Gerard Roure from Brazilian bank BTG Pactual wrote in a report on November 25.Producers increased their domestic long steel prices...