The situation in the CIS billet market has worsened further this week with the gap between bids and offers from mills widening, while overall trading has been extremely low.
Offers from major CIS-based mills have been heard at $385-390/mt FOB, down $5/mt from last week. There was a deal for 30,000 mt of Ukrainian billet done late last week to Latin America at $390/mt FOB with about $5/mt extra, SteelOrbis has learned. But this level is absolutely not workable at the moment, a number of sources said.
The tradeable level for ex-CIS billet from mills and the SteelOrbis reference price have slipped by $15/mt compared to the end of last week to $370-375/mt FOB mainly because of the further drop in bid prices. Most buyers’ price ideas have been at $360/mt FOB Black Sea or just slightly higher. Some traders have been offering position cargoes at $365/mt FOB, but no new deals have been reported even at this level. “Demand is very weak. It is unclear what is going on in the world,” a CIS-based producer has said.
Traders have been testing Turkish buyers with offers of CIS-origin billet at $385/mt CFR (about $370/mt FOB), but with no response and bids are mainly at $370-375/mt CFR. No firm offers have been heard from North Africa. In Southeast Asia, demand is stuck due to the recent lockdown in the Philippines, while bids from China have been at not higher than $405/mt CFR so far, which is equivalent to about $365/mt FOB Black Sea.
