Major Vietnamese steel producer Formosa Ha Tinh Steel has started to announce its new prices for HRC to its local market, raising them by $90/mt compared to February. The new prices are slightly higher than initially expected considering the low-priced position offers from Chinese traders.
New offers for re-rolling grade SAE1006 HRC (non-skin passed) in the local market for May shipment are reported at $930/mt CFR, up by $90/mt from the previous month’s $840/mt CFR. Skin-passed SAE1006 coils are reported at $935/mt CFR, while prices for SS400 are at $925/mt CFR.
The sharp growth in prices from Formosa has been expected by market sources as import prices from all main suppliers have been increasing rapidly in Vietnam since early this month. However, some sources said that the price increase by Formosa is slightly higher than initially expected as the aggressive pricing by Chinese traders has impacted sentiments. In particular, the latest offers for ex-China SAE1006 HRC for May shipment were at $905/mt CFR and customers have also been seeing low-priced position offers for SS400 HRC from traders at $840-850/mt CFR this week. “Currently, China is the only foreign HRC supplier in Vietnam as other suppliers like Japan, India and Taiwan are focused on sales to the EU, and Turkey at higher levels,” a Vietnam-based trader told SteelOrbis.
The SteelOrbis reference price for import SAE1006 HRC moved to $905/mt CFR, compared to $900/mt CFR at the beginning of this week, considering a slight rebound in Chinese offers on better sentiments in the futures market in China.