Although inquiries within the US import rebar market are slowly trickling in after the Thanksgiving holiday last week, traders say higher offers on the CFR level are being met with resistance. Import offers are still too close to US domestic rebar spot prices, sources say, and with another round of holidays on the horizon, there isn’t much indication in the market that US prices will rise in the near-term. As such, even slightly higher import rebar offers are not being accepted in the market.
As such, offers for imported rebar in the US domestic market from Turkey are still trending at $28.50-$29.50 cwt. ($570-$590/nt or $628-$650/mt) DDP loaded truck in US Gulf ports, unchanged in the last week, although that level has not taken new CFR offers into account.
Buyers in the US import rebar market are also concerned about the extremely low availability of positions at the ports. As of November 28, the US has only recorded 36,586 mt of rebar import permits for the month, compared to 72,512 mt for the full month of October (preliminary census data) and 125,882 mt in November 2016 (census data).