The Iranian heavy plate market has been declining over the last few weeks, just like other flat and long steel products in the local market, in line with the global trend of steel prices. Currently, local traders are offering Iranian origin commercial grades of plate (St37) of 10-40 mm thickness at about $650-670/mt ex-works Ahwaz (southwest Iran), down about $20-25/mt from two weeks ago and down about $30-35 from four weeks ago.
In the local Iranian market CIS origin plate grade St37 stands in a price range close to that for Iranian origin material, but prices of Russian and Ukrainian origin plates grade St52 of 10-50 mm thickness are at about $940-960/mt ex-stock Tehran, down about $30-40/mt compared to two weeks ago. There is currently a large gap between St37 and St52 grade plates in the local Iranian market, while CIS and other foreign suppliers consider the price difference between these grades to be only about $30-40/mt or even less.
Iranian market participants are mostly expecting further price reductions for plates in the coming days in line with international price trends, and this is why some local traders are selling their stocks at prices even lower than existing levels. The current falling trend means that players are not anxious to build up stocks at present and most traders prefer to sell material instead of making purchases.
There are two main producers of plates in Iran; Kavian Steel and Oxin Khouzestan Steel, with the latter having come on stream in recent times. Local Iranian production of plate is unable to meet domestic market demand and so the shortfall is imported, mainly from the CIS via Iranian ports on the Caspian Sea or Persian Gulf. In the last Iranian year (ended March 20), Iran imported about 512,000 mt of plate, up 47 percent on the volume of 349,000 mt in the previous Iranian year, according to the Iranian customs authorities.