Posted on 04 Jul 2022
The ASEAN billet import market appears to have stabilised at the end of last week, Kallanish notes. In fact, suppliers are trying to drive up prices in recent days amid the rebound in scrap.
Offers for electric arc and blast furnace billet from ASEAN mills are prevailing at around $585/tonne cfr Manila, Philippine importing sources say. A Malaysian mill offered 130mm 3sp/5sp blast furnace billet for July/August shipment at $585/t cfr around Wednesday.
A local buyer hears of 6,000 tonnes of 130mm blast furnace billet from Indonesia being ordered at $580/t cfr Manila earlier in the week. This was an add-on cargo to a previous 6,000t lot from the same mill at a higher price. Buyers are purchasing smaller tonnages because of price volatility, he notes, while suppliers are trying to raise prices but demand is slow.
Philippine re-rollers are hungry for orders and have been dropping rebar prices, a Manila trader says. This has caused finished steel prices to fall more quickly than semis, he adds. "Expensive" billet booked only last month at $650-660/t cfr has not yet arrived, but its buyers are already incurring large losses as a result. "There are no signs that rebar prices will stop dropping," the trader adds.
Kallanish assessed 5sp/ps or Q275 120/125/130mm square billet at $580-585/t cfr Manila, down $12.5 on-week.
Offers for BF and EAF billet from Malaysia and Indonesia were at $585-595/t cfr on Friday compared with $580-585/t earlier in the week, a regional trader in Singapore says.
Another trader says Indonesian mill Dexin increased its official offer price by $10/t to $570/t fob on 30 June. “But, unofficially, I think they'll consider lower bids too,” he says. An Indonesian re-roller also thinks the mill will accept lower bids. The mill's offer for 150mm 5sp billet on Thursday was $600/t cfr Jakarta compared to last week's low of $594/t cfr. He is hopeful that billet prices will soften this week amid the downward price correction in Chinese steel futures on Friday.
A price level of $590-595/t cfr Jakarta is "reasonable", says a Jakarta trader. But he is uncertain on the market trend this week after China's futures market dropped by RMB 100/t ($15) on Friday.
Source:Kallanish
