Import rebar offers in the US have slipped by approximately $0.25 cwt. ($5.50 /mt or $5 /nt) in the past week due to the softening asking prices from Turkish mills.
Most offers of import rebar for the US now range from $29.00 cwt. to $30.00 cwt. ($639 /mt to $661 mt or $580 /nt to $600 nt) FOB loaded truck, in US Gulf ports. The import pricing trend remains slightly down.
Numbers from Taiwan and other East Asian sources are no longer competitive and continue to rally upwards. With Asian imports now out of sight, Turkish offers are the only import rebar offers in town, and they are trending down.
Some traders suspect, however, that Turkish offers may be close to reaching their bottoming out point, and so are reportedly getting ready to buy the year's last shipments of November arrivals. Still, this does not imply an increase in end-use demand, which is still only lukewarm. However, some trader inventories are finally starting to come down. November arrivals are expected to be extremely light, but there should be new interest for January arrivals.
Data from the US Import Administration show that during the first nine months of the year, the top import rebar shippers to the US were: Turkey, at approximately 367,800 mt; Taiwan, at 331,400 mt; and Mexico, at 206,300 mt; Japan, at 134,400 mt; and Brazil, at 103,100 mt. Year-to-date at the end of September 2007, rebar imports totaled approximately 1,489,300 mt, down significantly from the 2,183,800 mt imported during the same period of 2006.
Domestically, rebar prices remain stable. Although scrap prices are expected to trend down slightly this month, domestic rebar mills will most likely keep their prices stable for November shipment, as they did when scrap prices increased slightly last month. There is very little chance that rebar prices will increase in November, though.
US rebar demand is still down year-on-year, and distributor inventories are still on the high side; however, no big holes are developing in domestic mills' order books since there has been very little import competition. The pricing trend for domestic rebar remains flat.
For the month of October, domestic rebar prices will continue to range from $30.90 cwt. to $31.40 cwt. ($681 /mt to $692 /mt or $618 /nt to $628 /nt) FOB mill.