Brazil flat-steel stockpiles rise

Brazil flat-steel stockpiles increased 18 per cent in March to 950,000 metric tonnes, the highest since the global credit crisis began, a steel distributor said.

Inventories rose from 807,600 tonnes on February 28 because some Brazilian customers defaulted on purchases of imported heavy steel plates, said Christiano da Cunha Freire, President of Sao Paulo-based Frefer Metalplus, former president of the Brazilian Steel Distributors Association.

Heavy steel plates are used in construction and shipbuilding. The stockpiles include 190,000 tonnes of heavy plate, of which about 80,000 tonnes were imported from various countries, da Cunha Freire said.

Defaults occurred "because the imported steel was ordered abroad at the peak of the cycle, making it more expensive than locally produced steel", at the time it arrived in Brazil, da Cunha Freire said. "It piled up at the ports and has now been bought by distributors and included in the inventories," he said.

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