North African long steel producers have remained focused on local market sales, but their exports have also been relatively active, particularly creating competition for Turkish mills. Their prices have overall remained relatively stable over the past week, with some aggressive prices available only from one of the Algerian mills. Still, while Turkey is offering rebar at around $570-580/mt FOB with some discounts possible, ex-North Africa offers are at least $10/mt lower.
Egyptian longs exporters, according to sources, are mainly sold out until the end of the year, with the majority of the latest sales closed to Europe. The latest prices are $560-565/mt FOB for rebar and $570/mt FOB for wire rod. The largest producers say no discounts are available at the moment as their order books are full.
Algeria’s export offers for long products vary depending on the supplier. One of the mills, Tosyali Algerie, is offering at $580/mt FOB for both wire rod and rebar, for January shipments, down $5/mt over the week. In the meantime, Algerian Qatari Steel (AQS), according to market sources, has recently fixed its DRI module and is now offering rebar at $550-555/mt FOB and wire rod, partially from stocks, at $535-545/mt FOB.
In addition, Libya’s LISCO has been offering rebar at $550/mt FOB for December shipment, mainly to Lebanon.
Israel, of all the MENA countries, has the highest import prices due to Turkey being absent from supplies to this destination. “Some sales have been done but the volumes are far from the previous ones,” a trader said. While domestic rebar and wire rod prices in Israel are somewhere in the range of $670-680/mt ex-warehouse, import rebar prices from Russia are at $620-630/mt CFR for both rebar and wire rod, while China is still offering at $630/mt CFR.
Notably, both Russia and China have been offering much more competitive prices to other North African countries. For example, in Egypt, Russia’s low carbon wire rod has been on offer at $570/mt CFR and its high carbon wire rod at $590/mt CFR. In particular, one of the mills has been offering at $490-510/mt FOB lately and has reported increased freight rates.
As for China, wire rod offers to West Africa have been reported at $560-570/mt CFR for January production, in line with the last week’s levels. However, in the rebar segment, according to sources, China was quite aggressive in previous weeks, offering at around $510-515/mt CFR to Africa and even slightly lower. The latest rebar offers from China have been reported at higher levels, closer to $520-525/mt CFR.