Most buyers in Southeast Asia’s import billet market have lowered their bids to below $700/mt CFR and have not been in a rush to conclude purchases, taking into account the still weak conditions in the long steel market. Only rare contracts for IF billet at lower prices have been reported recently.
A deal for ex-India IF billet has been reported at $675/mt CFR to the Philippines and another contract for IF billet of the same origin has been rumoured at around $680-685/mt CFR, but this latter deal has not been confirmed. “The finished steel market is very slow. Buyers are just unable to pay higher,” an international trader said. Offers for IF billet have been mainly at $685-690/mt CFR.
Buyers from the Philippines have been bidding for EAF or BOF billets at $690/mt CFR Manila. This has not been enough for the majority of sellers, who were still offering at $700-710/mt CFR this week. There have been a number of offers to the Philippines from traders at $700/mt CFR, but there have been no suppliers ready to go below $695/mt CFR.
Other Southeast Asian importers - from Indonesia and Thailand - have also been checking import billet prices this week. Most offers have been from the CIS (both from Russia’s Far East and the Black Sea region) and from traders at $700-705/mt CFR, but no deal has been done by the end of the week as buyers’ price ideas have not been above $690/mt CFR. “We got offers at $705/mt CFR since last week, but there is no rush to buy,” a buyer from Indonesia said.
“Thai customers can't pay any price close to what China and the Philippines are paying,” a local source said. Moreover, as the local rebar market has been weak and prices have been low, some IF-based producers from Thailand have been interested in exports. A small lot of 5,000 mt of IF billet from this country has been traded at $650-655/mt FOB to China. “The Chinese trader got a vessel to pick up their 20,000 mt parcel, then bought an additional 5,000 mt to load on top,” a trader from Bangkok said.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported billet (excluding IF) in Southeast Asia has gone down by $10/mt over the past week to $690/mt CFR.