At present CIS suppliers are absent from the Iranian market and the Orthodox Easter holidays are now also approaching. It is about two weeks now since the CIS suppliers have made any new offers due to Iran. Some traders or intermediary companies which had previously booked CIS billet are currently offering material at $380-390/mt CFR Iranian northern ports or even higher; however, there are no direct offers from the CIS suppliers themselves.
The CIS suppliers may reduce their prices slightly when they return to the Iranian market. Nevertheless, to stimulate the Iranian billet market they would need to offer at prices even lower than those for CIS ready stock billet at the Iranian ports.
Yesterday, Monday, April 13, two consignments of ready stock billet produced by Mechel and Severstal were respectively sold through the Iran Mercantile Exchange at Rials 3.81 million/mt (about $381/mt) and Rials 3.93 million/mt (about $393/mt) ex-stock Anzali port.
Although the price of ready stock material is close to that fresh production, local re-rollers or traders prefer to buy ready stock material, since there is no long wait for delivery and also no complicated procedures relating to letters of credit, etc. On the other hand, when buying fresh production material the money paid may be blocked for up to two or three months and nobody knows what levels prices will be at in the future.