Taiwan has returned to Japan for scrap imports despite the high price gap between suppliers from the US and Japan, as supply from the former has been visibly reduced.
Amid the lack of containers, offers for ex-US HMS I/II 80:20 scrap in containers to Taiwan have been scarce. The deals closed earlier this week were at $440/mt CFR, while offers were mainly in the range of $445-450/mt CFR this week. Market players state that as of today workable levels have increased and are higher than $440/mt CFR, but would not exceed $450/mt CFR either.
Meanwhile, offers from Japanese sellers to Taiwan for H1/2 50:50 scrap by bulk are in the range of $470-480/mt CFR as compared to $475-480/mt CFR last week. Two cargoes have been bought by Taiwanese players slightly below the level of $470/mt CFR. The price gap between the US and Japanese material is still $25/mt, which remains higher than the traditional $15/mt price gap, but, in the absence of the US cargoes, Taiwanese buyers have decided that it is time to accept Japanese offers. With Japanese suppliers having failed to sell to Taiwan for two to three months due to their higher price levels, these are the first deals heard from Japan. But again, market sources point out that this decision by Taiwanese buyers has been made amid the scarcity of ex-US offers.
According to market sources, domestic scrap demand in Taiwan is stable at normal levels. Hence, local demand for rebar is now at good levels and is continuing to revive with the support of higher scrap quotations. Some decreases have been recorded in the local Taiwanese rebar prices over the past week, but the losses have been recovered with prices now standing at TWD 22,000/mt ($795/mt) ex-works.
$1 = TWD 27.66