Following the sharp rises seen in the Chinese billet market over the past two days, Russian billet prices have again become the most competitive in Taiwan’s import market.
On Monday, the major Russian mill shipping from the Far East ports of Russia reduced its billet offers to Taiwan by $5/mt to $450/mt CFR for December shipment and, though most buyers were still targeting $440-445/mt CFR, it seems that Russian billet is now the most competitive.
Last week, traders were ready to sell ex-China and ex-Indonesia billets for December shipment at $450-452/mt CFR Taiwan, while Russian offers were at $455/mt CFR. But over the past two days the ex-China reference price has increased by $22.5/mt, reaching $445-460/mt FOB, being fully out of the range of interest of buyers. "The combination of economic stimulus measures has pushed up the steel market ... Chinese MLF [medium-term lending facility] has been cut by 0.3 percentage points to ease the financing cost and the futures market is up by four percent [for some products]," a Chinese trader said.
The Indonesian mill’s latest offer is for January shipment at $445/mt FOB. This mean that ex-China and ex-Indonesia billet offers from traders will not be below $460/mt CFR Taiwan from this week.
“The last deal was done at $445-450/mt CFR [to Taiwan for Asian origin], but now I think in general imports [of billets] will slow down,” a trader said.
