Southeast Asian customers for billet have been faced with a further price increase this week, as suppliers, seeing the revival of demand from China last week, have become more bullish. Billet offers from the CIS and Malaysia have been at $420-430/mt CFR Southeast Asia mainly for January shipment, $10-15/mt above the workable level last week, SteelOrbis has learned. Apart from traditional suppliers from Russia’s Far East, mills from the Black Sea region have been active in negotiations. However, there have been no reports that customers have accepted the above levels so far. Instead, they are mostly just evaluating the market.
“We cannot find offers below $420/mt CFR. Some of them are already much higher,” an importer in the Philippines said. At the same time, traders mentioned that the previous deals were signed at $405/mt CFR Philippines more than a week ago, which on the one hand signals that buyers will have to return to the market soon to restock, but on the other hand the resistance from customers shows that the gap between offers and bids is still quite big. Customers’ overall price idea is still not above $415/mt CFR.
At the same time, about 40,000 mt of Iranian billet was sold to a trader at $370/mt FOB, which is equivalent to $405-410/mt CFR Thailand, including the freight rate, financial expenses and the trader’s margin. As it reported earlier, the previous transaction was at $395-400/mt CFR Thailand.