Russia-based rebar producers have been aiming to increase their domestic prices, but have not yet succeeded in fixing the new price levels in deals due to low demand in the market. The level of stocks is said to be very high at the moment and, in addition, the seasonal demand improvement is yet to come. In the meantime, exports are weak, being mainly due to Turkish offers trending down and the uncertain situation in the scrap segment.
In the Central region of Russia, the domestic rebar price is at $581/mt (RUB 52,000/mt) CPT Moscow, up by $16/mt (RUB 2,000/mt) since earlier in March. The producers in the Southern region have increased prices by around the same amount to $603/mt (RUB 54,000/mt) ex-works, SteelOrbis has learned. “There are large stocks in the market now and it is hard for the mills to increase prices until they are sold out,” a source said. Mills are expecting demand to seasonally revive starting from May and are hopeful they will be able to increase prices. “Today, the price of rebar at $580/mt is in line with FOB billet levels. It is very low [for rebar],” a producer mentioned.
In the export segment, rebar offers from Russia are at $610-615/mt FOB for April shipments, stable over the past week and down by around $15-20/mt from two weeks ago. “Hopefully, scrap in Turkey rebounds and it will help [CIS-based] mills to not only increase the export rebar price but to have more reasons to raise domestic offers,” a source told SteelOrbis.
Local prices in RUB include 20 percent VAT, while prices in US dollars do not.
$1 = RUB 74.6