Similar to the US scrap market, the US billet market is slow and domestic billet prices are softening.
With continually sluggish activity in the US finished products market and the slowly recovering economy, domestic billet demand has remained low. There are not many transactions to be seen in the market, as re-rollers are trying to maintain their billet inventories at low levels during the fourth quarter. On the other hand, there is abundant billet supply in the market, thus allowing re-rollers to buy whatever tonnage they may need.
Therefore, with lack of billet demand, US billet prices have followed the decreasing US shredded scrap prices, going down approximately $30/mt to the level of $550 to $560/mt in October. Looking forward to next month, market sources expect domestic billet prices to trend sideways or a little further down.
According to the US Import Monitoring and Analysis System (SIMA), total billet imports into the US in September were 21,203 mt, reflecting an increase of 6,676 mt from the previous month. The primary billet exporters to the US during the period were: Mexico, at 15,671 mt; Canada, at 3,219 mt; and Brazil, at 1,542 mt. Other countries that exported smaller amounts of billet include Japan and the United Kingdom.