Prices for imported slabs in Asia have continued to go down as no demand improvement has been seen and as buyers have continued to ask for lower prices.
In particular, the new slab exporter from Indonesia, Dexin Steel, has been offering slabs to China at $720-725/mt CFR and has been receiving bids at $715-720/mt CFR latetly. As SteelOrbis reported last week, the previous offers from this seller were at $730-735/mt CFR. However, even if a deal is done at such a lower level in the near future, it cannot be assessed as the real market level, market sources have said, as for now Dexin has been able to sell slabs only to China and for trials.
According to sources, a deal for higher quality slabs has been done to Indonesia from the Middle East at $780/mt CFR over the past week. This level seemed attractive to the customer as another traditional supplier of higher grade slabs was still asking for above $800/mt CFR.
Iranian sellers have started to offer slabs to Asia more actively. One of the main Iranian producers has been asking for $780/mt CFR China, while another seller has managed to close a deal to Southeast Asia at $680/mt FOB, with the freight having been assessed at $60/mt or above.
Taking into account the weak sentiment in the HRC segment in Asia, import slab prices will remain under pressure. The SteelOrbis reference price for imported slabs in Asia, which is based mainly on higher quality slabs, has declined by $15-20/mt over the past week to $780-800/mt CFR.