Flat product sales from distributors and service centres in Brazil fell again in June, Kallanish understands from newly-released data by the distributors' association Inda. This negative performance has led the association to revise its outlook downwards for a second time in six months.

Inda’s new outlook points to purchases from flat steel distributors being stable, while sales are set to increase 2% month-on-month in July. Overall for 2017 the association says sales by distributors are set to fall -5% year-on-year. Earlier in the year Inda projected a decrease by -2% y-o-y for distributors’ sales of flats.

Distributors’ sales fell by -14.7% y-o-y and -7.4% m-o-m in June to 223,200 tonnes, Inda`s data shows.

Brazilian distributors purchased 229,600t of flat products in June. This was only -0.8% down on May, but -7.8% less than the 249,000t registered in June 2016.

Imports of flat steel by local distributors reached 102,400t in June, a surge of 254.2% y-o-y, but a decrease of -8.5% compared to May.