Sentiments have worsened in Vietnam’s HRC import market over the past week and buyers have started to bid at much lower prices seeing cheap offers from Chinese traders starting to emerge. The price range has widened sharply as suppliers of higher quality thin coils have been not giving discounts and insist on a further increase.
Offers and a few small tonnage deals for position cargoes from Chinese traders for SAE1006 HRC with more than 2 mm thickness and one sale of SS400 HRC have been reported at $670-680/mt CFR this week, while last week the price assessments in the market were at $720-725/mt CFR. Nevertheless, Chinese mills have remained more conservative and have not been actively offering at much lower prices. “Bids are at $660/mt CFR now, because prices in China fell sharply and more offers from traders are expected in the coming weeks,” a Vietnam-based trader said.
At the same time, Baosteel sold 10,000 mt of high grade re-rolling SAE1006 coils with 2 mm thickness at $737/mt CFR to Vietnam. Last week, bookings for at least 30,000 mt of SEA1006 in total were at $720-725/mt CFR. Such a sharp difference between higher grade and lower grade coils in the Vietnamese market is explained by the very limited offer volume of the former. Ex-Taiwan SEA1006 HRC has been offered at $750/mt CFR over the past week, with no booking heard. No firm offers for ex-Japan HRC have been heard to Vietnam and mills have been asking $800/mt CFR in other Asian countries.
Vietnam-based Hoa Phat has offered re-rolling grade coils at $690/mt CFR to the local market for March shipment, but for limited volumes.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported SAE1006 HRC has been settled at $695-700/mt CFR, down by $25/mt over the week. The price does not include the highest and the lowest deal prices and indicate the average level between the buyers’ asking prices and sellers’ assessments of the tradable value.
