A Brazilian distributor in the southeast region said it is still selling imported heavy plate from China in the domestic market at the same prices seen in the past few months.
According to this source, imported heavy plate from China for October shipments are now being traded domestically at BRL 2,950/mt ($780/mt) FOB.
“Prices haven’t unchanged so far,” a source said, adding that a slight increase could be passed to its clients, depending on the fluctuation of the local currency, since it buys the plates in USD, but sells it domestically in BRL.
“We bought about 1,000 mt of the product in the past few days, and we’re still waiting for it to arrive at Brazilian ports. We’ll see what the currency rate will be then,” a source said, while commenting that domestic prices are too dependent on the foreign currency.
According to this source, who resells plate from Usiminas and WFB from Gerdau, he imports plates from China because local producers don’t provide plates of the thicknesses he needs.
1 US$ = BRL 3.78