In Russia, domestic steel demand, particularly for flats, has picked up lately due to the long-awaited seasonal improvements in the construction segment. In addition, the demand coming from nearby CIS countries remains at acceptable levels, while Iranian buyers are still actively making inquiries from Russia. As a result, for several weeks now, Russia has not been offering shipments from Baltic Sea and Black Sea ports since, due to the global downturn for steel and some raw materials, the workable prices for the MENA region and Turkey are much lower than the prices Russian mills are able to achieve locally.
In the domestic market, the initial prices for June production HRS in Russia stood at RUB 59,000-60,000/mt ($665-675/mt) CPT for thin material and RUB 59,000/mt ($665/mt) CPT for thick material. Later, taking into account the stronger demand, prices were gradually increased to RUB 60,000-61,000/mt ($675-685/mt) and RUB 62,000-63,000/mt ($695-710/mt) CPT, respectively. “There is positivity in the sheet, longs and pipe segments due to the summer seasonal improvement,” a source told SteelOrbis.
In addition to fairly lively local sales, Russian mills, according to sources, are quite actively selling to nearby CIS countries at prices equivalent to around $515-520/mt FOB and slightly higher in some cases. Iranian buyers have also remained active, with the range of $560-570/mt FOB Caspian Sea still being workable in this market. Some sources have reported that some local Iranian production capacity may be restarted shortly, which means less demand may fall into the hands of Russian mills from this destination in the near term.
For now, however, being focused on the abovementioned sales, Russian mills feel no need to offer to their regular MENA and Turkish markets where prices have been falling lately. The workable prices for the non-sanctioned HRC from Russia would be around $540/mt FOB Black Sea, while from the Baltic Sea the mill would not intend to sell below $530/mt FOB.
$1 = RUB 72.83
Prices in the local currency include 22 percent of VAT.
