Posted on 27 Jan 2021
Japanese scrap continues to fall sharply, Kallanish notes.
South Korea’s Dongkuk Steel has squeezed prices lower with its bid for Japanese H2 grade scrap at JPY 36,500/tonne ($352/t) fob on Tuesday. The mill’s bid is JPY 3,000/t lower than Hyundai Steel’s bid for similar grade scrap last week, but Dongkuk only ordered 10,000t. “They think market prices will come down some more,” a Seoul-based trader said on Tuesday. Hyundai Steel’s H2 bid last week was JPY 2,500/t lower than the previous week.
In Japan, Tokyo Steel announced three rounds of price cuts in its domestic scrap procurement within less than a week. The leading Japanese EAF mill lowered prices by a total JPY 7,000/t ($67/t) since 22 January to JPY 33,000/t ($318/t) for H2 scrap purchases trucked to its Utsunomiya steelworks, effective 27 January.
Japanese scrap prices are falling in Vietnam too. A trader there reported hearing H2 offers at $415/t cfr on Tuesday morning but expects prices to be lower after the Dongkuk purchase.
The Dongkuk transaction price is equivalent to $389/t cfr southern Vietnam, a mill manager says. He has not received any fresh offers, he adds. Last Thursday, Japanese H2 scrap offers were prevailing at $435-440/t cfr, down from the transacted $460/t cfr during the week ending 8 January.
Source:Kallanish
