Prices of imported wire rod in Southeast Asia have posted minimal changes over the past week, but customers have been asking for discounts, seeing drop in the billet segment and declines in the Chinese wire rod market.
Ex-Malaysia BOF wire rod has been sold at $775/mt CFR Manila and also a deal at $765/mt Bangkok has been rumored in the market. The tradable level for BOF wire rod in ASEAN was around $770-775/mt CFR last week, while most offers from large mills have been far above – at $780/mt CFR and higher. Suppliers have started to be more flexible, seeing rising negative sentiment in the market.
Imported IF wire rods from Vietnam have been offered to the Philippines at $770/mt CFR, stable compared to late last week after deals at $755-765/mt CFR, reported earlier.
The big decreases in billet prices negatively affected ASEAN buyers’ sentiments recently and as a result, some wire rod bids have slipped to $740/mt CFR or below in Southeast Asia.
The further declines in wire rod prices in Chinese market exerted a negative impact on the sentiments in the ASEAN wire rod market. Offers for ex-China wire rod have been heard at $800-840/mt FOB, moving down by $37.5/mt on average compared to that recorded in the previous week.
“The prevailing bearish sentiments among market players in wire rod market weakened the support to ex-China wire rod offer prices, while the significant declines in coking coal and coke futures prices also negatively affected ferrous metal futures prices, which dragged down local wire rod prices. Nevertheless, the production restrictions may bolster the prices to some extent,” an international trader said.
As of Thursday, October 28, rebar futures at the Shanghai Futures Exchange are standing at RMB 4,712/mt ($737/mt), decreasing by RMB 264/mt ($41/mt) or 5,3 percent since October 21, while decreasing by 1.28 percent compared to the previous trading day (October 27).
$1 = RMB 6.3957