The lower prices announced by Indian and Indonesian slab suppliers last week attracted some interest and new deals were signed to Southeast Asia and China. Though the deals were mainly for lower quality slabs, suppliers of higher quality material had to follow the downward trend.
New Indonesian slab producer Dexin Steel has managed to sell 30,000 mt of slabs in total to two Chinese buyers after a week of negotiations. As a result, 10,000 mt of slabs have been traded at $735/mt CFR and another 20,000 mt have changed hands at $727/mt CFR. This supplier was offering at $745/mt CFR to Taiwan previously, but failed to find a buyer. “They are selling only to China now,” a source said. As Dexin started slab production only in the middle of this year, they have limited flexibility in terms of grades and have been focused on trial sales to China over the past few months, SteelOrbis has learned.
In addition, there has been information about a deal for 30,000 mt of ex-India slabs produced by SAIL at $730/mt CFR to Southeast Asia over the past week, though this could not be confirmed by the buyer. A week ago, an offer from the same seller was heard at $735/mt CFR. Sources said that this was among the lowest offers in the market and, since the seller was not in the mood to cut price further, the deal was done.
The exporters of higher quality slabs have also been under pressure. One large Indian seller has started to offer at $750/mt CFR to Southeast Asia. Last week, a deal for ex-Saudi Arabia slab was reported at $780/mt CFR.
As the situation in the HRC segment in Southeast Asia is not expected to improve by the middle of the month, slab suppliers will remain under pressure in the short term. The latest reference price for import HRC in Vietnam has been at $880-890/mt CFR.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported slabs in Asia, based on higher quality slabs, has widened to $750-800/mt CFR, from $780-800/mt CFR a week ago.