Posted on 04 Aug 2025
The ASEAN billet market has weakened after reaching recent highs, Kallanish notes. Price offers are slowly coming down after larger price corrections on the Shanghai Futures Exchange.
In Manila, offers for open origin 5sp 150mm square billet of open origin, either Chinese or ASEAN, for October shipment, were at $469/tonne cfr and for 5sp 130mm, $478/t cfr. The offer for 3sp 150mm billet was heard at $465/t cfr.
There were also lower-priced offers on Friday which were not widely heard in the market. A buyer reports an offer for Chinese 5sp 150mm for end-September shipment at $460/t cfr Manila.
Another buyer who received the same offer from an agent says: "We will never be sure if his principal/trader is engaged in short selling or may be unloading a previous position."
An Indonesian mill manager said last Friday that he had been offered Chinese 3sp 150mm billet at $460/t cfr Jakarta. A Chinese trader added that this was “cheap” considering 3sp billet was now around $450/t fob and freight costing around $15-20/t, depending on Chinese port.
Chinese 5sp 150mm square billet offers were heard at peaks of $475-480/t cfr Manila on 25 July and $480/t cfr Jakarta on 29 July.
During the last week of July, non-Chinese billet offers surfaced in Manila. A 10,000t deal of Vietnamese 5sp 150mm induction-furnace billet for September shipment was heard ordered at $465/t cfr Manila. Japanese 3sp 130mm EAF billet was also offered at $470/t cfr.
Kallanish assessed 5sp/ps or Q275 120/125/130mm square billet last Friday at $465-470/t cfr Manila, down $5/t on-week
Indonesian’s Dexin Steel reverted its offer for 3sp 150mm billet to $453/t fob, unchanged week-on-week. It opened its November order books on 1 August. Its billet offer price peaked at $460/t fob on 30 July.
Meanwhile, offers of 3sp 150mm Chinese billet fell further to around $445/t fob last Friday, down $7/t versus last Monday, while the most traded SHFE rebar contract dropped CNY 45/t ($6/t).
Buyers in the Manila were looking to book 3sp 150mm billet at less than $455/t cfr last Friday, according to certain Chinese exporters. That is equivalent to $440/t fob for Chinese billet, indicating a price gap of at least $5/t between buyers and sellers.
Source:Kallanish
