Sources told SteelOrbis that slab producers in Brazil are temporarily moving their focus to the domestic market, as so far there are no reports of deals effectively closed for the export of slab for shipments in September.
At least one domestic deal was closed for 80,000 mt, at a price around the equivalent to $710/mt, FOB conditions, for shipment in September.
The sale probably refers to a shipment to the Cubatão plant of Usiminas, which usually feeds on slab from the Ipatinga plant of the company and from third parties.
A scenario persists with exporters considering $750/mt for sales to the US and $700/mt for non-US destinations, as the FOB base price for negotiations, while the producers of HRC remain insecure about achieving a reasonable profitability, considering such slab prices and consistently declining HRC prices.
Nonetheless, Brazilian exporters remain hoping to close the first deals for shipments in September during the next two weeks.
Preliminary figures are now pointing to a much smaller volume of slab being exported from Brazil in July, from the 512,700 mt exported in June.