Two major Russian mills, shipping from Far Eastern ports, are having a limited billet export allocation at the moment, as they have been sold out for January and even for a large part of February in some cases.
The latest deal for ex-Far East Russia vanadium-added billet has been done to Taiwan at $540/mt CFR for January shipment. At the same time, an offer for ex-Japan vanadium-added billet has been reported at $545/mt CFR Taiwan.
In the basic billet segment, the latest deals for ex-Far East Russia billet were at $520-525/mt CFR Taiwan early in the month, as already been reported by SteelOrbis. Taiwan is not paying anything more than $525/mt CFR [for basic material] today. $520/mt CFR would be a very good price, but I don’t see many offers, maybe due to the year-end holidays too,” a large Asian trader said.
One of the Far East Russian mills has claimed it is sold out for January shipment and will wait for better prices for February shipment, while another one said to customers that there is no February shipment allocation, at least for now.
The reference price for imported billet in SE Asia is at $523-530/mt CFR (for both 3SP and 5SP), according to SteelOrbis. But “SEA markets are slow now especially the Philippines which is quite on the full holiday mood,” a source said.