The situation in the Asian import slab market has remained weak over the past two weeks as demand has been still under the big pressure of rising Covid cases. At the same time, some suppliers of non-prime grade slabs have continued to cut prices, trying to attract buyers.
Slab offers from one of Indian mills have been at $800-810/mt CFR Southeast Asia recently, while other Indian sellers, which may offer higher quality slabs, have been still refusing to drop prices much below $850/mt CFR.
Moreover, new supplier from Indonesia has also been active, trying to make test sales at discounted prices. According to the information from the market, a test lot of Indonesian slabs has been booked to China at below $800/mt CFR, but this could not be confirmed by the time of publication and market sources believe that the low price must be connected with the trial lot, unstable quality.
Offers from prime grade slabs have been still at $870/mt CFR on average with demand extremely weak and market players see this level just nominal. “I think $850/mt CFR could be a fair price for now,” a trader said.
“The Asian market [of flat products] is so weak now because of the high Covid infections situation. Not big interest is for slabs,” an importer from Indonesia said.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported slabs in Asia has decreased to $840-850/mt CFR, which is assessed as the tradable level for the prime grade slabs, down by $10-20/mt over the past two weeks.