On October 19, local Vietnamese steel producer Formosa Ha Tinh Steel (FHS) has announced its new HRC prices for domestic customers, having delayed its announcement for one week. The new offers have been revised downwards, as expected by most market insiders, given the still low prices for import HRC, for ex-China HRC in particular, while most customers have been pushing for lower bids given the slow demand in the country.
More specifically, FHS’s prices for re-rolling skin-passed and non-skin passed SAE1006 and SS400 HRC to local customers have been voiced at $575-580/mt CIF for December-January shipment, down by $13-17/mt from last month. However, according to sources, the price depends on the size of orders, and while $580/mt CIF is available for big SAE1006 HRC orders, customers ordering 10,000-20,000 mt will pay $583/mt CIF, and the price for 5,000-10,000 mt batches stands at $586/mt CIF.
The decision to cut prices came after yet another failure by Chinese suppliers to increase prices in new deals. Prices of imported ex-China SS400 HRC have been voiced at $525-530/mt CFR, with most bids voiced at $520/mt CFR. Besides, offers for ex-China SAE1006 HRC have been heard at $550-560/mt CFR, while indicative for ex-Japan HRC have been heard at $580/mt CFR.