Iran's domestic hot rolled coil market has been on a downward trend both last week and in the current week. 2-5 mm hot rolled coil, the specifications which hold the greatest market share, are currently changing hands at about $555-640/mt ex-stock Tehran, representing a reduction of $10-12/mt week on week. Meanwhile, thicker hot rolled coil sizes (6-15 mm) have remained at last week's range of $590-630/mt ex-stock Tehran, but local traders are worried that the new falling trend for 2-5 mm sizes may start to influence the prices of the larger sizes.
On January 4, local state-owned steelmaker Mobarakeh Steel sold a large batch of 2-5 mm hot rolled coil through the Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) at about $550/mt ex-works with delivery of 45 and 75 days, showing no changes from the previous sales prices. Indeed, Mobarakeh failed to sell some batches of hot rolled coil on January 4 due to the new downtrend in the local market.
Iran imports a large volume of hot rolled coil from other countries, especially from the CIS. The import flow is a factor which helps to stabilize the local market and usually prevents any sharp fluctuation of prices. According to Iranian customs, Iran imported about 1.18 million mt of hot rolled coil in the first eight months of the current Iranian year (started March 21), up 35 percent on the figure of about 871,000 mt in the same period of the last Iranian year. The Iranian government's reduction last year of the customs duty to four percent may be indicated as one of the main factors which has boosted Iran's volume of of hot rolled coil imports.