North African longs producers, particularly those in Egypt, have been quite active in their exports lately, given that they dropped prices to acceptable and competitive levels. Moreover, having traded some volumes abroad, North African producers are trying to pull their prices back up,
At the end of April, Egypt’s longs producers were offering rebar and wire rod mainly in the range of $610-620/mt FOB, but some of them have provided large discounts. From the end of last week, rebar has been offered to the US for large lots at $570/mt FOB base, while wire rod, according to sources, was sold last week at $585/mt FOB. Currently, while large suppliers consider $575-585/mt FOB levels possible for wire rod, some suppliers have started voicing $600-610/mt FOB as official offers. Still, buyers believe it is possible to find lower levels especially for 15,000-20,000 mt orders. Some rebar indications are climbing to $585-590/mt FOB, but no realization at these levels has been reported. Currently, Egyptian longs pricing is somewhat unclear and depends on the supplier, destination and volume.
Algerian mills have been showing limited export activity lately. One of the mills, which had an accident at its DRI module and fixed it only recently, is nowadays offering only rebar at $605/mt FOB. The same producer traded 15,000 mt of rebar to Senegal via a trader around 10-12 days ago at $615/mt FOB. Another Algerian supplier is not giving any firm prices at present, but reports low bids from the buyers, at around $560/mt FOB for both rebar and wire rod.
In Europe, which is one of the key buyers for North Africa, the offers from Malaysia are at $540-545/mt FOB and offers from Indonesia at around $530-535/mt FOB. Given freight at $60/mt for large lots, the latter indication is quite competitive pricewise but is not so attractive due to the long lead time.
In Lebanon, offers from Egypt for rebar and wire rod have been reported at around $620-630/mt CFR for small lots, while the same levels have been heard offered by Russian mills. Still, some of the Russian traders, according to sources, are ready to accept around $590-600/mt CFR Beirut for mixed longs batches.
In Turkey, the latest Egyptian wire rod offers have been heard at $610/mt CFR, more or less in line with last week. Malaysia remains at $595-600/mt CFR from key suppliers, while ex-Russia and ex-Donbass offers, according to sources, have gone down to $585-590/mt CFR.
As for importers in the North Africa, Israeli sources have reported offers from Russia for mixed batches of longs at $595/mt CFR, while China has offered rebar at $575-595/mt CFR depending on the volume. In this situation, Turkish rebar prices which are at $630-650/mt FOB, which are not quite workable in the region.