AssofermetDay
AssofermetDay&SteelOrbisConference launches with a bang in Brescia
The first annual Assofermet Day & SteelOrbis Conference was held with great success on November 15, 2013 at Villa Fenaroli Palace Hotel in Rezzato in Brescia in northern Italy. The conference, organized by Assofermet (Italian association of traders of iron, steel, nonferrous metals, ferrous scrap, hardware and similar goods) and SteelOrbis, was attended by prominent local and international operators in steel-related sectors. In the morning, there were closed meetings for the various Assofermet product segments, as well as two open debates: the Assofermet Scrap division discussed the shortage of scrap in the Italian steel industry, under the coordination of Assofermet president Romano Pezzotti and with the participation of Cesare Pasini (Feralpi Siderurgica Spa), while the Assofermet NonFerrous Scrap division held a debate attended by Mario Bertoli, president of Assomet (Italian national association of non-ferrous metal industries), and Nicola Cantele of Eredi Gnutti Metalli Spa, among others. In the afternoon, Luca Veronesi, general manager of SteelOrbis Italy, and Roberto Lunardi, president of Assofermet, gave introductory speeches on the theme of the economic sustainability of the European steel industry. Joachim Schroeder, CEO of Research and Consulting Group, Serdar Kilimci, sales manager of Turkish steelmaker Çolakoğlu, Patrick C.P. Tuen, president of Shanghai Steel Trading International Chamber of Commerce, and Burçak Odabaşı, director of SteelOrbis, all made presentations. After the afternoon coffee break, there was a roundtable discussion with the participation of Antonio Gozzi, president of Italian steelmakers association Federacciai, Tommaso Sandrini, vice president of Assofermet, and Ugo Miretti of the European Commission. The debate was coordinated by Giulio Sapelli, economist and professor of economic history at the State University of Milan.
New approaches needed in Italian steel sector According to Romano Pezzotti, president of Assofermet Scrap division, and Cesare Pasini, vice president of Feralpi Group, a new approach is needed in the relationship between scrap dealers and steel mills. e debate they participated in during the event’s morning session, chaired by Pezzotti, focused on the lack of scrap availability in the Italian steel industry. According to Pezzotti, among the most critical problems in the current system is the lack of loyalty shown by scrap dealers to their customers, with scrap dealers becoming “loose cannons” that sell to one steel mill one day and the next day decide to sell to another mill. is generates price volatility which is difficult to manage even
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for big companies, he said. “is requires consideration of how we should face the fu-
Volume 7; Issue 1
ture,” added Pezzotti, who said he believes that the Italian steel industry is trying to deal with the current tough times by using old solutions. He went on to express hopes for greater synergy between scrap dealers and their customers (i.e., steel producers), who were represented in the debate by Cesare Pasini. e Assofermet official remarked, “With Pasini, I always talk about these problems and there is a common intention to try to evaluate new projects and initiatives, but this is not enough. e entire supply chain must change its way of doing things.” For his part, Pasini said that last year the share of Italian scrap requirements obtained from abroad was equivalent to 30 percent of total domestic consumption, not much different compared to the figures of previous years. However, he added that in recent years new variables have emerged. For instance, the presence of Turkey has become increasingly significant. “We are at the mercy of what is decided in Turkey as regards knowing what prices we are going to pay in the near future,” Pasini said. In this situation, he continued, any glimmer of recovery in production will run the risk of being undermined by the difficulty in tracking the necessary volumes of scrap. “e volumes that Turkey withdraws represent about 12 percent of scrap consumption in the EU. In 2012, 11.5 million metric
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