Following a long-lasting pause, a new import billet deal has been reported to the Philippines at prices slightly higher compared to the levels seen in late August. But the overall demand situation has remained poor and fundamentals have not improved much, SteelOrbis learned from market sources on September 7.
The deal for 25,000 mt of ex-Indonesia billet was done to the Philippines last week with the price for modified 5SP billet at $548/mt CFR (standard 5SP price is assessed at $542/mt CFR). Some traders said that the 3SP billet has also been included in this deal and the price was $537-538/mt CFR. The freight from Indonesia to Manila has been assessed at $25/mt or just slightly above.
Some traders, who have taken positions of ex-ASEAN billet from large mills, have been asking for $550/mt CFR and above in the Philippines.
The lowest traders’ offers for 3SP billet from the ASEAN region have been at $540/mt CFR Manila, versus the previous $530-535/mt CFR. Also, among the competitive offers for ex-Russia $530/mt CFR Manila, overall demand for the Russian market is still limited in the Philippines due to Western sanctions.
Though prices for imported billet have posted some increase over the past week, this has mainly been connected with the latest increase in demand in other destinations (like Europe, Africa and Turkey), while the fundamentals inside the ASEAN region have remained poor. “The market is still full,” a trader said about demand in the Philippines. “Demand is quite slow in the Philippine market. This is just a regular restocking,” another source said.
The SteelOrbis reference price for 3SP/5SP billet in Southeast Asia has increased by $5-8/mt over the past week to $535-548/mt CFR with the lower end of the range corresponds to traders’ offers to other countries in Southeast Asia like Indonesia or Thailand, excluding ex-Iran billet.