Despite the rise seen in the scrap market in Turkey, Russian basic pig iron (BPI) suppliers have failed to achieve better prices, and overall trading has remained subdued. Rare deals have been signed still at low levels, excluding high grade pig iron, production of which is limited, while the outlook for steelmaking pig iron is still rather weak.
The SteelOrbis reference price for ex-Russia BPI has been at $307-320/mt FOB Black Sea with the midpoint at $313.5/mt FOB, inching up by just $1/mt since last week.
A deal for 30,000 mt of ex-Russia BPI has been signed to India at $350/mt CFR, translating to around $305-310/mt FOB. “If not Turkey, there are no other destinations,” a market source commented rather low price level in a deal.
Some mills have still been targeting $350/mt FOB, which has been assessed by market as “not reflecting the current situation”. “The best sellers can get is $320/mt FOB from Turkey, but they refuse to sell, even though the storage fees are increasing [in Novorossiysk port due to large volumes unshipped],” a trading source said. As for the import BPI market in Turkey, bids have improved from the lows seen last two weeks – to $340/mt CFR or even slightly above, from $325-330/mt CFR reported last week. But no new traders for sizable volume have been reported so far.
Nevertheless, due to limited allocation of high-grade pig iron, some small volumes of less than 10,000 mt of pig iron from Russia with low sulfur and low manganese have been sold at $355-360/mt FOB for Turkey. “Tula is not in the market [due to the blast furnace stoppage] so there are no options for this grade, but it is not reflecting what is happening in the pig iron market, which is very weak,” a local source said.