Although the general market sentiment among US-based basic pig iron (BPI) buyers remains mainly negative, some of them have decided to restock with the ex-CIS raw material after all. Ukraine’s Metinvest group has recently sold a total of 80,000 mt to the US at the average price of $340/mt CFR. It is worth mentioning that sources estimate the deals in the range of $335-342/mt CFR depending on the port of discharge and the freight.
As a result, the estimated FOB prices for BPI ex-CIS remain at around the $315-320/mt range, SteelOrbis understands.