Prices for imported slabs in Southeast Asia have increased visibly since late December as overall sentiment in the flat steel segment in the region has remained firm and most mills in Vietnam, India, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have been voicing high prices for HRC. The increase has happened despite lower offers available from China in the HRC export market, because of plunging futures and local market prices in China.
The latest offers and the tradable value for slabs in the Asian market have been heard at $680/mt CFR or just slightly below, up from a Russian origin deal to Taiwan at $630/mt CFR in late December. The higher prices for slabs are explained by the excessively big difference between HRC and slabs previously, which has been normalizing lately, according to sources.
A tender from Iran for 30,000 mt of slabs was closed at $632/mt FOB BIK Iran for shipment in mid-February in the last days of December, which corresponds to approximately $664/mt on CFR basis to Asia. In the next contracts, sellers will target about $645-650/mt FOB (about $680/mt CFR), SteelOrbis has learned.
“Offers [for slabs] are still limited and HRC prices are very different from seller to seller,” an Asian trader said. Formosa Ha Tinh announced on Friday, January 8, its new offers for the Vietnamese market at $720-725/mt CFR for SAE1006 coils, despite lower prices available from China - at $685-690/mt CFR, according to today’s reports from market sources. These low-price offers have been mainly from traders, but some of them have been from mills for limited quantities. The sharp fall in China's futures prices on Monday and the continued decline in local spot prices in the country have added to the weaker sentiment in the Chinese HRC market.
Offers from S. Korea and Japan are still above $750/mt FOB ($770-800/mt FOB depending on the mill) as mills are not focusing on the Vietnamese market.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported slabs in Asia has increased to $670-680/mt CFR, up from $630-660/mt CFR last week.