The US billet market stayed more or less the same since last month in light of lukewarm demand and plentiful supply, while import offers decreased slightly.
Internationally, billet prices have come down approximately $15 to $20/mt from a month ago due to the absence of Chinese buyers in the market. Currently, billets from CIS are offering at $440 to 450/mt FOB, while Turkish producers are offering billet to the export market in the range of $465 to 475/mt FOB.
With only slight price decreases on the US shredded scrap in early February, domestic billet prices were able to maintain the level of $510 to $520/mt. However, billet buying activity has still been slow in February due to market uncertainty. As demand for long products continues to be soft and demand from the end-user market remains weak, re-rollers are hesitant to buy billet until their inventories reach much lower levels.
Total billet imports into the US in February (as of February 23, 2010) was 8,333 mt, representing a decrease of 11,362 mt when compare to the figure of 19,695 mt in January. The main countries that exported billet to the US during February were: Mexico, at 5,550 mt and Canada, at 2,700 mt. United Kingdom also exported a smaller amount of billet to the US during the period.
As for billet export, the statistics show that the amount of US carbon billet was increased significantly by 126,060 mt from 42,490 mt in the third quarter of 2009 to 168,550 mt in the fourth quarter of 2009, though the latest data shows that the amount of US carbon billet exported in the month of December 2009 was 77,365 mt, which reflects a decline of 3,819 mt from November 2009. Peru imported the largest amount of US carbon billet in December by importing 32,644 mt. Other major US carbon billet importers during the month include: Taiwan, at 24,790 mt and Dominican Republic, at 19,711 mt.