While domestic longs sales remain a priority for North African mills, only Egypt has been relatively active in the export market. One of the reasons why Algeria has refrained from active overseas offerings is the ongoing shortage of power generation in the country, which has affected production rates. Another reason is that the new quota system in the EU has almost excluded Algeria from supplying the market.
Egyptian mills have reduced their export offers by around $10/mt over the past two weeks and are currently offering $570-575/mt FOB for rebar and $580-590/mt FOB for wire rod. However, offers for wire rod to Saudi Arabia are at $625-630/mt FOB, SteelOrbis has learned. The offers are for August-September shipments. In the domestic market, rebar prices range from EGP 35,000-38,500/mt ($600-660/mt) ex-works, with the lower end offered by smaller mills, while the upper end reflects Ezz Steel's official price level.
In Algeria, official rebar and wire rod prices are at DZD 117,000/mt ($740/mt) and DZD 118,000/mt ($745/mt) ex-works, respectively. While earlier the mills had been considering a potential price increase due to electricity issues in Algeria, this week some of them have withdrawn their usual discounts for large and regular buyers and have kept their official offers stable. Following the changed discount policy by the Algerian local supplier, the domestic retail prices for rebar have settled at DZD 120,000-122,000/mt ($760-770/mt) ex-warehouse, up by DZD 3,000-5,000/mt ($20-30/mt) over the week.
$1 = EGP 51.15
$1 = DZD 133
VAT rate in Algeria is 19 percent, in Egypt 14 percent.
