After active export sales at competitive prices in July, Japanese mills have stopped giving discounts to customers due to the anticipated reduction in production in September. Recent offers from Japan to Vietnam have been at $520-530/mt CFR, which is equivalent to about $500/mt FOB. Customers have not been so active in purchases of Japanese HRC recently.
Nevertheless, overseas customers are waiting to see some softening in Japanese HRC prices, expecially when the Japanese mills will start to offer October production HRC. Nippon Steel will carry out maintenance at one of its mills in September, which is why the available HRC volume for export for September production declined to 350,000 mt compared to the traditional 500,000 mt, a contact close to Nippon Steel told SteelOrbis.
In the previous round of sales, Japan was actively selling HRC not only to Asia but even to non-traditional destinations like Turkey, Egypt, the UAE and Europe. The selling prices were in the range of $505-520/mt CFR. On FOB basis, the prices reached $480/mt in July.
