The local Iranian rebar market has maintained its declining trend during the current week, influenced by reduced prices for billets in the global markets. At present, 12-25 mm rebar prices are being transacted at $520-530/mt ex-stock Tehran, compared to the range of $535-550/mt the week before and compared to levels of about $540-570/mt in the last days of September.
On November 1, state-owned rolling mill Azarbaijan Steel offered a batch of 14-25 mm rebar at $510/mt ex-works with 20-day delivery through the Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME); however, nobody bought the material, with the bids of would-be buyers only reaching as high as $495/mt. Esfahan Steel, another local state-owned producer, has not supplied any rebar to the market during the current week, with traders in Iran generally citing weak demand and low prices as the most likely factors behind the producer's decision not to sell material.
Meanwhile, Iranian privately-owned rolling mills, which hold a large market share in the Iranian rebar market, have also modified their prices in a downward direction in the last few weeks, while some of them have closed their sales in the hope of seeing a recovery. However, most market players are not expecting any recovery in the near future and some of them are even expecting to see a further decline in the coming weeks. The approach of winter, with the resulting frustration of construction activities, is another factor which can cause the local market to sink into deeper stagnation in the coming weeks.
According to new data issued by the Iranian authorities, in the last Iranian year (March 21,2008-March 20, 2009) local state-owned steel plants and re-rollers in Iran produced about 3 million mt of rebar, privately-owned rolling mills produced about 1.5 million mt of rebar, while about 900,000 mt of rebar were imported into Iran in the same period.