Prices for imported slabs in Asia have remained under pressure in early July as demand has not improved and the unclear situation in the HRC segment has been making most buyers stay away from purchases.
Indian suppliers have been among the most active and flexible recently, cutting offers to $855/mt CFR Southeast Asia from $870/mt CFR and above reported last week. The asking price for ex-Malaysia slab is starting from $860/mt CFR. But no new deals have been reported so far as most customers are taking a wait-and-see position. “Now due to the government's involvement in Covid prevention, it has announced an emergency curb from Java to the Bali area from the third until the 20th of July. Hence, the market is very quiet now,” an end-user from Indonesia said.
Some other large slab exporters, like Russia and S. Korea, are heard to be still resisting any sharp decline and are offering at $880-890/mt CFR.
The different signals from the HRC market have also put pressure on demand for slabs in the Asian region. After a sharp drop in import HRC prices to Vietnam to $887.5/mt CFR on average last week, early this week no further decline has been seen and some sources believe that prices may rebound a little in the near future. Chinese HRC suppliers have increased prices in their local market and some slight gain seen in the export market as well.
As a result, the SteelOrbis reference price for import slabs to Asia has been corrected downwards just slightly - to $855-880/mt CFR, from $860-880/mt CFR a week before.