Although new offers for basic pig iron (BPI) announced by one of the CIS-based producers last week were considered to be excessively high by most market insiders, by the end of week a supplier succeeded in booking material at a new high.
Accordingly, on Friday last week a Russia-based mill sold BPI, for shipment at the beginning of February, to the US at $430/mt CFR. The FOB price is estimated to be about $410/mt FOB Black Sea, with freight being assessed at $20/mt. Although the price is $10/mt higher than the most recent offers announced by a supplier, it is $18-19/mt higher than the price fixed in the previous sale to China. “To my mind, they [the supplier] were too quick. The uptrend is only gaining momentum,” an international trader stated. “It has turned out that today the US pays a much higher price than China accepts. Until quite recently the case was different. The market is crazy today, with new numbers and patterns being announced each day,” another international trader commented.