By the end of this week, more deals from Indonesia and China have been heard in the market and, after the deals, most offers from Asia have started to be for August shipment only. Southeast Asian importers have also been more active in purchases after the decline in prices from early this month.
The leading Indonesian mill has heard sold at least 100,000 mt of billet for mainly July shipment at $430/mt FOB this week, in line with offers heard on Wednesday. A bigger part of the volume is for the Vietnamese market, market sources said, but “negotiations in Turkey and other Southeast Asia countries are also active”. There has also been a rumour that the Indonesian mill has sold billet to the Turkish market at $424/mt FOB, but market sources polled by SteelOrbis said that the level looks “unrealistic” as the producer has already closed July shipments and it has had no need to drop prices more this week.
In addition, some sales for ex-China billet have been rumored at $420-425/mt FOB, but were not confirmed by the time of publication. The official reference price for ex-China billet stands at $425-430/mt FOB.
Also, the major billet importer in the Philippines is heard to have bought 30,000-40,000 mt of Chinese 150 mm 5SP billets at $450/mt CFR. “Some billets were sold, but origins are the option of the seller,” a Manila-based source said.
In addition, a deal for 3SP billet is heard to have been done at $440-445/mt CFR Indonesia.
The further trend of the billet market in Asia will depend on the situation in China, but some further slight declines are not excluded.
The SteelOrbis reference price for import billet in Southeast Asia has settled at $440-450/mt CFR, down by $7.5/mt on average from last week.