The major Indonesian mill Dexin Steel has hiked its prices for billet, slabs and wire rod by $5/mt on Friday, March 13, to $485/mt FOB, $505/mt FOB and $515/mt FOB, respectively, as compared to the previous day. The wire rod is for shipment in June and the slabs for shipment in July. “We can say that local sales were supportive, so order books are full. But, in fact, the price increase was voiced at just a slight amount,” a sales representative said.
In the case of slabs, the merchant volume for exports is rather limited to both local and export markets as the mill enjoys strong demand for HRC, with total HRC sales reaching 200,000 mt over the past two weeks. Moreover, Dexin enjoyed rather strong demand for slabs from local and overseas customers in the previous round of bookings. A couple of deals for slabs were done at $490-500/mt FOB for June shipment, with one of them confirmed to Turkey, while one of the contracts was for the local market.
As for billet, the shipment month is still April, according to the official price list. But there has been a rumor of a sale to a trader at $470/mt FOB for April shipment this week, after a long period of just local sales. Though the sales destination is unclear at the time of publication, some sources believe it may be Turkey. Before this, Dexin Steel managed to push billet in the local market at around $460-465/mt FOB.
