Bearish sentiments have been prevailing in Southeast Asia’s import billet market, but most major suppliers from the ASEAN region have not been ready to cut prices much, expecting some rebound after the long Chinese holiday. As a result, the majority of customers in Southeast Asia have focused on purchases of cheaper IF billet or ex-Iran billet, SteelOrbis has learned from the market on September 29.
There have been reports of the latest deals for ex-Malaysian IF billets at $525/mt CFR Manila or just slightly above, which is better than offers for EAF/BOF billets from the ASEAN region. Offers for ex-Thailand IF have been reported at $530/mt CFR to the Philippines. “I think this is happening as scrap is lower,” a trader said, commenting on lower prices for IF billet. As SteelOrbis reported earlier two weeks ago, IF billets were traded at $540/mt CFR Manila.
At the same time, ex-ASEAN EAF/BOF billet offers mainly from traders have been heard at $542-550/mt CFR to the Philippines, while offers from mills have been at $550/mt CFR and above. Taking into account the last sales of IF billets, buyers from the Philippines will insist on prices not above $535-540/mt CFR for EAF/BOF material.
As a result, SteelOrbis’ reference price for imported billet in Southeast Asia has declined to $540/mt CFR, versus $540-548/mt CFR last week.
This price does not include ex-Iran billet prices. Other countries in Southeast Asia apart from the Philippines - Indonesia and Thailand - have been focusing on ex-Iran billet. A deal for at least 20,000 mt of ex-Iran billet to Indonesia was reported at around $510/mt CFR over the past ten days. This is mainly in line with offers last week, but at least $10/mt higher than the previous bids. Also, there has been a rumour of about 30,000 mt of ex-Iran billet sold to Thailand at $520/mt CFR, but the price has remained unconfirmed by the time of publication and most of SteelOrbis’ sources believe that this level is too high and that the real market price is hardly above $510-515/mt CFR.
Though the recent deals for ex-Iran billet have been signalling some slight improvement from the previous tradable levels of $500-510/mt CFR, ex-Iran material has remained the best option for customers in Indonesia and Thailand. There have been no cheap offers from Russia (the lowest offers were at $535-540/mt CFR). Also, a major Indonesian mill has been offering in the local market at $550/mt CFR. So, even with some increase, ex-Iran billet has been the most attractive in terms of prices.