Prices for ex-Russia basic pig iron (BPI) have been under renewed pressure as at least one Russian mill has been in the market needing to push volumes quickly, while sales to Turkey have been on pause after the previous lively period.
The SteelOrbis reference price for ex-Russia BPI has settled at $300-305/mt FOB Black Sea, down by $5-10/mt compared to last week.
The latest ex-Russia bookings for 20,000 mt of BPI were done to Turkey at around $305/mt FOB, translating to $325-330/mt CFR Turkey. But after active purchases in the previous few weeks, this week there have been no reports of fresh deals and a number of market sources believe that buyers will come back only at the end of the month. Even though BPI from Russia is still $20-30/mt below the benchmark scrap prices in Turkey, “there were enough volumes purchased to cover needs for December”, a market source said.
In addition, there has been a rumor that one Russian mill has sold at a price below $300/mt FOB, but this information has remained unconfirmed by the time of publication.
There have no new sales from Russia to Asia either, but sellers will target the stable level of $345/mt CFR in their next bookings for January shipment.
