With most recent sources of US import rebar now priced out of the market, the few remaining sources have continued raising prices to keep a “comfortable” margin between their offers and uptrending US domestic rebar prices.
Offers for imported rebar in the US domestic market from Turkey are up $0.50 cwt. ($10/nt or $11/mt) this week, hitting a minimum of $39.50 cwt. ($790/nt or $861/mt) DDP loaded truck at US Gulf ports, while offers from Brazil are still “hard to come by,” sources say, due to producers preferring the Brazilian domestic market to export markets lately. Sources also indicate that Brazil, which is under a quota agreement with the US in place of Section 232 tariffs, might have already reached their annual quota for rebar exports to the US, knocking yet another competitor out of the US import rebar market.
Section 232 tariffs have continued to affect import rebar arrivals in the US, with only 23,288 mt of rebar import permits recorded for the month of June so far (as of June 19), compared to nearly 180,000 mt of rebar arriving in the US in June 2017. Also as of June 19, there have been no rebar arrivals recorded from Italy, Brazil, Peru, and only 1,845 mt from Mexico, leaving Turkey in the top spot with 13,342 mt.