The recent strengthening of scrap deal prices in Turkey has encouraged European suppliers to raise their offer prices, to Pakistan in particular. However, trading activity to Pakistan has slackened lately, with restricted construction activities due to the ongoing month of Ramadan and due to the approaching lockdown. “Despite slow trading here, prices have expectedly moved up. The global market is again becoming strong. We will go into lockdown next week and, although manufacturing is exempt from any restrictions, strict measures will be enforced on sales activities,” a Pakistan-based trader commented with regard to the current market situation. “We are witnessing two different steel markets here…a booming flats market and a stagnant rebar market,” the representative of a key Pakistani rebar mill stated.
Accordingly, this week offers of shredded 211 scrap of European origin in containers to Pakistan have been voiced $470-475/mt CFR Qasim, up $10-12/mt compared to the levels in the middle of the current month. HMS1 from the UAE has been offered at $455-460/mt CFR Qasim this week, according to sources.
Meanwhile, local traders in the northern region of Pakistan increased their prices of scrap equivalent to shredded to PKR 91,100/mt ($588/mt) ex-warehouse, compared to PKR 89,700/mt ($584/mt) ex-warehouse two weeks ago, chiefly citing low availability of material in the domestic market.
By the end of the current week, prices for domestic grade 60 rebar in the northern provinces have increased to PKR 132,000/mt ($852/mt) ex-works, while at the beginning of the current week the offers were voiced at PKR 131,000/mt ($851/mt) ex-works. The smaller changes in the dollar-based quotations have been caused by the fluctuations in the Pakistani rupee-US dollar exchange rate. All prices on Pakistani rupee basis include 17 percent VAT.
$1 = PKR 153.814