The demand situation has remained very poor in the Southeast Asian slab market over the past two weeks and this has continued to put pressure on import prices. Low-priced offers from India and Indonesia (for lower quality slabs) have emerged in the region as sellers have been trying to accelerate sales.
One of the state-run mills in India has been offering slabs at $735/mt CFR, down by $70/mt from the levels of $800-810/mt CFR in early August. One source said that a deal at this level has already been done, but the details are not available by the time of publication. “I believe prices should be lower in the coming days,” an Indonesian buyer said. Ex-Indonesia billet from the relatively new supplier Dexin has been available at the almost same level - $730-735/mt CFR.
Higher quality slabs from other sellers, such as Russia and some Asian producers, are available at $800-830/mt CFR at the moment, and, though the price difference with lower quality material is pretty high, this level is much lower than the last deal for ex-Russia slabs, done at $850/mt CFR earlier this month. A trader said that it will be hard to achieve any price above $800/mt CFR in Southeast Asia in the near future if the flat steel market remains as it is now.
The downtrend seen in the slab segment has been supported by the visible slowdown in the flat steel market. At the moment, bids for import HRC in Vietnam are below $880/mt CFR.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported slabs in Asia, which is based mainly on higher quality slabs, has slipped again - to $800-815/mt CFR, down by $20-35/mt over the past week.