Despite the negative mood continuing to affect the flats spot market this week, traders have chosen to keep offers unchanged from the previous week. The main pressure has come from the weakness in the hot rolled coil (HRC) and scrap markets, but with the start of Ramadan demand in the domestic market has shown additional weakness during the week.
“Decreases are occurring particularly in HRC pricing but we have maintained spot prices since demand is minimal and with Ramadan it has fallen to even lower levels. I believe prices will fall slightly within the next week, but I am not sure how much we can drop them because costs are considerable,” a medium-sized trader told SteelOrbis
As a consequence, workable domestic hot rolled sheet prices have been quoted at $690-710/mt ex-warehouse, unchanged week on week. Reports state that bigger traders are providing around $710/mt ex-warehouse, while smaller and medium-sized traders are offering at $690-700/mt ex-warehouse.
In the cold rolled sheet market, offers have remained stable compared to last week at around $820-840/mt ex-warehouse. However, a few traders have offered lower prices at around $800-810/mt ex-warehouse.
