The rise in import billet prices has been confirmed in deals to the Philippines recently, with around a $35/mt hike seen compared to the previous booking.
In particular, around 40,000 mt of ex-Vietnam BF 150 mm billet have been sold at $760/mt CFR Manila, according to market sources. This is up from the $725/mt CFR contract done also for ex-ASEAN material previously reported by SteelOrbis.
“Offers are on the rise, so the main buyer here [in the Philippines] decided to purchase,” a source said.
In addition, there have been talks about a booking for 30,000 mt of ex-Russia 130 mm billet to the Philippines also at $760/mt CFR, but this could not be confirmed by the time of publication. Though last week one of the banks in the Philippines refused to work on a supply contract for Russian billet, a number of sources said that there are no official sanctions on Russian exports in general at the moment and “trading continues, but I am not sure that it will be easy to confirm deals signed directly by mills,” one trader said.
Though the shortage of billet in the Asian region is still much smaller than in the Black Sea region, the uptrend has been supported by rising raw material costs and rising enquiries from customers in the MENA region. “I think suppliers will target $800/mt CFR in Asia soon,” one of the sources said.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported billet in SE Asia has been increased from $725-750/mt CFR late last week to $760/mt CFR.