Imported scrap trades to Pakistan witnessed a brief slowdown over the last few days on account of Eid celebration and the market is expected to resume again from Thursday this week, while global offers continued to move up on a weekly basis, due to continued supply and availability issues. Market expects the price to move up further on renewed post Eid demand from next week.
SteellMint’s assessment for Shredded 211 scrap in containers to Pakistan from UK/Europe now stands at USD 280/MT CFR Qasim, further up by at least USD 5/MT against last week. Most fresh offers are now being reported in the range of USD 280-285/MT CFR, while few Shredded deals in the recent days were recorded at USD 278-280/MT CFR.
“We booked two batches of Shredded of 500 MT each at USD 279/MT and USD 280/MT CFR yesterday and day before from Europe and UK, while we expect offers to move up further in coming days” shared a Punjab region based steelmaker.
“Buyers here are expecting that once steel mills in India come back to the market for bookings by end of this month, offers may suddenly move up further” Shared a Karachi based steel mill.
HMS 1 premium offers from South Africa were reported at around USD 255/MT CFR Qasim in the later half of last week and fresh offers are now touching USD 260/MT CFR. Export ban from UAE till September, has turned South African material even more preferable.
However, industry participants confided that even now most Pakistani buyers prefer Shredded imports more in comparison to imported HMS, a trend which had increased last year after a different import duties of the two, post June’19 budget.
Many steelmakers who had opted to resume their steel production after Eid, even though govt had permitted resumption from 11th May, will now return to market from later this week and in turn somewhat balance the supply-demand dynamics, which may slightly pull down the steel prices that have been hovering at a considerably high levels since the last 2-3 weeks. Currently steel bars (Grade 60) are being offered at around PKR 113,000/MT in Punjab and PKR 114,000/MT in Sindh region, ex plant basis.
From Thursday onwards, govt may introduce SOPs for smart lockdown, construction sector, in order to balance the safety as well industry needs, at the same time, reported reliable sources.
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