With the extended lockdown restrictions until August 10 in order to curb rising cases of Covid-19, import scrap trading in Bangladesh has remained muted. Nevertheless, this week some Bangladeshi traders have entered the market aiming to explore the current levels of offers from foreign suppliers. Despite scarce activity seen in Asia in general, import scrap offers in Bangladesh have remained at high. Specifically, the shortage of containers and the overall sky-high freight rates have continued to affect scrap prices.
On balance, import scrap offers to Bangladesh have remained almost unchanged compared to the levels seen before the lockdown declared a month ago. Accordingly, this week import offers for shredded in containers to Bangladesh have been heard at $540-550/mt CFR Chittagong, while for HMS I/II 80:20 scrap in containers the suppliers are aiming to get $535/mt CFR Chittagong. Meanwhile, PNS scrap and bushelling scrap is said to be available at $560/mt CFR Chittagong and $575 CFR Chittagong, respectively. “Today all activities are still stopped here, including steel operations, in particular.
However, mills will need material for next month’s production. Hence, sooner or later scrap purchases will recover. I have doubts that we will be able to get any chances of lower prices across the subcontinent, considering the shortage of containers and freight issues,” the main Bangladesh-based trader stated.
Other traders, on the contrary, expect import offers to soften in the coming days on the back of the recent weakening of fundamentals in the global market. Some of them have already started testing the market with bids for shredded scrap at $525/mt CFR Chittagong and lower.
Meanwhile, local rebar prices have remained unchanged within the past two weeks, at BDT 71,000-72,000/mt ($822-833/mt) ex-works.