Prices for imported billet in Southeast Asia have posted a sharp fall this week as most major ASEAN mills, as well as Chinese traders, have become more aggressive, trying to accelerate sales. However, only rare sales of low-priced IF billet have been reported in the Southeast Asian market, with most buyers leaving the market ahead of Easter.
There was information in the market about a 10,000 mt sale of ex-Vietnam IF billet at $560-565/mt CFR Manila early this week and another trade for ex-Thai IF material at a similar price. “I believe this was a desperate sale [for ex-Vietnam IF billet] made by the trader with a big loss on the position,” a Singapore-based trader said. Last week, a sale for IF billet was concluded at $575/mt CFR and most sources said that this was already extremely low.
EAF/BF billet offers to the Philippines were at $590-600/mt CFR early this week and market sources said that buyers would target even lower levels of $580-585/mt CFR once they returned from the holidays. “The Philippines are on holiday until Tuesday, so no business would happen until then,” a trader said.
As SteelOrbis reported earlier, some local billet sales were done in Indonesia at $585/mt CFR and for ex-Iran billet customers have started to target $575/mt CFR or so.
A short sale of ex-Dexin billet by a Chinese trader at $572/mt CFR Taiwan reported early this week is still assessed as too low for the market in general.
The Southeast Asian reference price for import billet has settled at $575-590/mt CFR this week with the midpoint at $582.5/mt CFR, down by $17.5/mt over the past week.
