Posted on 20 Jul 2021
Vietnam's Formosa Ha Tinh has lowered the prices of its new domestic hot rolled coil allocations for September shipment by $60/tonne, Kallanish notes. The mill is offering non-skin-passed SAE 1006 grade re-rolling HRC at $970/t cfr Ho Chi Minh City.
Prices for skin-passed SAE 1006 HRC and SS400 grade HRC are tagged at $975/t cfr and $965/t cfr respectively. The $60/t price fall reflects the weak domestic market because of Covid-19 curbs, sources close to the company say. In addition to a plunge in steel demand, logistics and transportation of steel are affected. Last month, Formosa priced its August shipments of skin-passed SAE 1006 HRC at $1,030/t cif Hai Phong and at $1,035/t cif Ho Chi Minh.
“Formosa’s price is still high for the domestic market; only the large Vietnamese mills can follow the price for the re-rolling grades because they have coated export sales,” a Vietnamese trader says. "Pipemakers can wait for [competing mill] Hoa Phat but the re-rollers will have to buy from Formosa.”
“Buyers will not accept these [new] prices,” says another trader who has not heard of recent bids. He thinks buyers will wait for Hoa Phat to release its new HRC offers instead. Russian SAE 1006 HRC is still offered at a very competitive level of $890/t cfr Vietnam, he adds. HRC from this Russian mill is typically used for pipe-making applications.
Formosa also announced on 19 July that the price of its new wire rod allocations is $60/t lower than last month.
Source:Kallanish
