On January 2, Vietnamese HRC producer Hoa Phat Group has announced its new prices for March-April shipment, decreasing them by around $7/mt over the past month. Although the price correction has been small, the decision has been attributed to the slow demand in the country and is in line with market sources’ expectations, as import quotations, especially those for ex-China HRC, have failed to recover in new offers.
Specifically, Hoa Phat’s prices for non-skin passed SAE1006 and SS400 HRC for March-April shipment have been announced at VND 13,190-13,222/kg ($518-519/mt) CIF, where the lower end of the range corresponds to prices in northern and central Vietnam, while the higher price is found in the south. Thus, the current price is around $7/mt lower than last month.
The decision to decrease prices was expected since last week most traders had started to lose confidence, seeing the weakening of the Chinese market ahead of the New Year holiday. The latest offers for ex-China Q235 HRC have been reported at $480-485/mt CFR for February shipment, the same as last week, while offers for Q235B 2mm coils have been voiced at $490/mt CFR. At the same time, offers for ex-China SAE1006 HRC are at $495-500/mt CFR, the same as last week, while other foreign suppliers have been refraining from offers in Vietnam. Thus, the SteelOrbis reference price for import SAE1006 HRC in Vietnam has moved to $495-500/mt CFR, from $495-520/mt CFR last week, where the higher end of the range corresponds to the ex-Indonesia deal price.
In the meantime, most market insiders have remained negative in terms of the future price trend as no significant recovery has been seen in futures prices in China. In particular, as of January 2, HRC futures at Shanghai Futures Exchange are standing at RMB 3,424/mt ($476/mt), decreasing by RMB 4/mt ($20/mt) or 0.1 percent since December 26, while up 0.03 percent compared to the previous trading day, December 31 2024, according to SteelOrbis’ data.
$1 = RMB 7.1879