Taiwan Billet Import Slip by 5% in Oct – 2017

In the month of Oct’17, the Taiwan billet imports plunged down by 5% M-o-M, the nation’s custom data showed.

The nation has imported about 200,000 MT Billet in Oct’17 against 210,000 MT in Sep’17, decline by 4.76 % on monthly basis and during Oct’17, Japan has exported around 70% billet (140,000 MT) to the nation.

While on Y-o-Y in Oct’17 imports plunged more than 41% against 340,000 MT in Oct’16. Considering current year 2017 (Jan-Oct), the imports down by 1.89% to 2.59 MnT against same preceding last year at 2.64 MnT.

Prior to this, in CY16 (Jan-Dec) the country’s billet import was around 3.28 MnT & in CY15 at 2.90 MnT.

As per the SteelMint’s assessment in October 2017, the crude steel production of Taiwan was around 1.97 MnT and in CY17(Jan-Oct) it was approximately 18.94 MnT. Prior to this it was at 21.57 MnT in CY16 & 21.37 MnT in CY15.

Country wise:

During October 2017, the largest exporter of Billet to Taiwan was Japan – 140,000 MT, Russia – 60,000 MT.

Similarly, in the total billet imports during 2017 (Jan-Oct), the major sellers of billet to Taiwan was – Japan 1.35 MnT (52.21%), Russia 0.67 MnT (25.80%), United Arab Emirates 0.32 MnT (12.24%), Iran 0.16 MnT (6%) & China 0.08 MnT (2.98%).

Key Updates

1. Taiwan’s prices for importing containerized HMS-grade ferrous scrap have gained this week, price assessment for USA based HMS 1&2 (80:20) are at USD 330/MT CFR Taiwan. Prior to this, booking was made around USD 320-322/MT CFR which has been fetched from USD 310-315/MT.

2. Dumping duties of up to 14.3% imposed by Australia on the four countries in November including Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Spain for exporting Rebar.

Top load Country (Jan-Oct’17), Billet

Quantity in MnT
Sources: SteelMint Stats