Italian merchant bar producer Beltrame says that it faced surging raw material costs again in October. The steelmaker has published a prospectus showing the year-on-year increases in the company’s purchasing prices. These refer to its plants located in Italy and France for its merchant bar and beam division, and in Switzerland for its rebar division.

The western European merchant bar market is suffering in terms of prices and sales volumes (see Kallanish passim). Producers are therefore faced with increasing raw material prices and are struggling to find a balance between margins and costs.

Beltrame’s merchant bar and beam business unit reveals the average purchasing price variations for the AFV Vicenza steel mill in Italy and the French LME plants each month. In October, the company registered an exceptionally strong increase of 306% in the price it paid for electrodes compared to that in October 2017. In September, the company reported an increase of 297% year-on-year and another increase of 295% in August y-o-y, Kallanish notes.

The steelmaker’s French and Italian plants also spent 23.8% more y-o-y for ferroalloys in October, and saw the cost of refractory materials increase by 20.8%. In September it reported a 27.9% hike y-o-y for ferroalloys and saw the cost of refractory materials also increase by 20.8%. in August the cost of ferroalloys went up by 29.4% y-o-y, while refractory materials increased by 21.7%.

In October the Beltrame SG plant in Switzerland saw a jump in graphite electrode input costs of over 260% compared to October 2017 while in September it had registered a staggering 347% hike y-o-y. October ferroalloy costs for the Italian steelmaker’s rebar division saw a y-o-y increase of 13.4%, while prices for refractory materials grew by 13.4%, the company reveals in the report.