Sentiment in the CIS steel billet market had cooled down somewhat by the end of the week, with demand in most destinations only modest and bookings rare, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday August 14.
*** CIS STEEL BILLET
Despite this, CIS billet producers were in no hurry to reduce their offer prices, they added. “Order books are strong [so] mills can wait,” a billet producer source told Fastmarkets. And a trader said: “Iron ore [prices are] firm, so let’s see what happens next week.”
Recent offers for September-rolling billet from CIS mills selling material from Black Sea basin were heard at $400-410 per tonne fob, depending on the mill, with the lower end of the range representing offers from smaller, second-tier mills in Russia.
“Second tier-mills were looking to sell material to Turkey or North Africa, but found no customers there – even at $400 per tonne fob,” a second trader said.
*** Turkish customers
Turkish customers were concentrating on domestic billet bookings and were looking to pay no more than $410 per tonne cfr (395 per tonne fob Black Sea) for prompt shipment cargoes.
Customers in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region, meanwhile, also said they preferred to buy locally and regarded the current prices from the CIS region as too high.
“Local demand for finished steel products is weak, so we are in no hurry to book,” a regional source said, adding that CIS billet was currently scheduled for shipment in October, while local deliveries were available much earlier.
*** Southeast Asia
Customers in Southeast Asia were also showing little interest in CIS-origin billet this week, preferring to take a wait-and-see approach in expectation that prices will fall.
No offers to Asia from the Black Sea basin were heard this week, while a Russian mill shipping from the country’s Far East ports offered material at $437 per tonne cfr early in the week to a customer in Manila in the Philippines. The offer price was subsequently reduced to $۴۳۳ per tonne cfr, with a sale recently heard concluded at $۴۲۷-۴۲۸ per tonne cfr.
In China, the most recent offers for Russia-origin billet shipped from the country’s Far East ports were heard at $۴۳۵-۴۴۰per tonne cfr, but the material found no takers.
*** rebar prices
Customers in China have been less interested in imported billet recently due to uncertainty over rebar prices in the coming weeks, with futures trending downwards.
Fastmarkets’ daily steel billet index, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, was $402 per tonne on August 14, unchanged day on day and down $2 per tonne week on week.
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