While it's not yet time for a final assessment, it is already clear that stainless steel's 2016 will surely be remembered for one thing: the raw material prices hike and the resulting increase of semi-finished product quotations.

According to last updates from National sector portal Siderweb.com, nickel prices have increased by more than 35% year on year, with an acceleration of prices rising trends in dollars/tons in recent weeks that caused the breach of the last threshold resistance set last May. Combined with the decline in official reserves (-17.4% in 2016) and the position taken by technical curves, it seems a prelude to a continuation of the upward phase.

A general overview that makes the possibility even more concrete is also of a rise in iron ore pricesthe, whose performance has even upgraded to 95% since the beginning of the year.

Strong increases have also affected the price of ferrochrome: the new price benchmark for the European market from Merafe - South African supplier company - stood at 165 cents per pound. This is a 50% increase compared to the last quarter of the year, whose most important precedent dates back to the 4th quarter of 2008, as it had arrived to 185 cents per pound.

These increases reflect on the prices of stainless steel coil at both European and international level with increases that, when fully operational, will be in the order of 50% compared to the minimum in early 2016.