The outlook of the CIS market: August 15-21, 2006

The prices of CIS long producers retained their levels during last week regardless of price pressure from both consumers and Chinese exporters. Quite the opposite, during the last week the presence of Russian and Ukrainian origin materials increased. In the Russian domestic long products market, rebar prices for the first time since the beginning of summer ’gave up' their leading positions and stopped rising. However, the demand is still very strong, enough to attract other CIS producers to very attractive Russian market. In Ukraine, domestic long products following an example of Russian market started to rise in price. Thus, during the last week domestic prices for rebar rose 6 percent, for angles rose 4 percent, for beam rose 5 percent, for channel bar rose 12 percent. Among long products only wire rod showed the stable price trend throughout last week. The export market for CIS origin flat rolled saw a decrease in prices regardless of the scarcity of the materials in the market. Thus, during the last week Ukrainian and Russian producers decreased their average HR export prices below $500/mt FOB Black Sea for October shipments. As far as Russian domestic market is concerned, almost all materials were stable during the last week. Some fluctuations were seen for some products but they were insignificant. For instance, in the course of the week, CR sheet price rose by average 1.3 percent while HR sheet decreased 1 percent. In Ukrainian domestic market, the quotation for flat rolled products showed relatively stable trend. The only exception was galvanized steel, which rose in price by 3 percent during the last week.