Major Vietnamese producer Formosa Ha Tinh has started to offer wire rod for December delivery, increasing prices by around $5/mt compared to the previous month. Also, the company has announced its new billet prices for the export market, seeing a revival of demand from China.
Formosa Ha Tinh is offering its grade 2 mesh quality mild wire rod at $525/mt CFR. Its mesh quality wire rod offers are at $535/mt CFR, according to reports from Vietnamese sources. Firm demand for wire rod in Vietnam and the positive mood have supported the producer’s move.
Formosa Ha Tinh has also announced its billet price for the export market at $450/mt FOB. The freight to China is assessed by market sources at around $10/mt, so the price translates to $460/mt CFR. For now, it is too high for customers in China, which have started to be more active in imports since last week, but market sources believe that buyers may be further interested in purchases of Vietnamese billet at higher prices if local Chinese prices follow an uptrend.
As SteelOrbis reported earlier, 20,000 mt of Vietnamese billet from another producer has been sold at $435-437/mt FOB or $445-447/mt CFR China this week. There is a rumour of an additional sale of the same volume at $450/mt CFR, but it has not been confirmed by the time of publication. Sentiment in China’s import billet market has been hit by local billet price decline recently - the local price level in Tangshan has lost RMB 30/mt ($4.5/mt) over the past two days coming to RMB 3,390/mt ($503/mt) ex-works.