South Korea: Dongkuk Steel Raises bid for Japanese Scrap by Yen 500/MT

Robust demand for Japanese scrap continues to push bid prices upwards. Recently South Korea’s Dongkuk Steel has raised its scrap purchase bid by JPY 500/MT, following which other South Korean mills are rising scrap purchase prices further.

South Korea’s leading electric arc furnace steelmaker – Dongkuk Steel has raised its import prices for Japanese H2 ferrous scrap. Its latest bid put was at Japanese Yen 40,000/MT (USD 353), CFR for H2 grade against its last bid reported at JPY 39,500/MT (USD 349), CFR. The current scrap purchase bids are equivalent to JPY 36,500-37,000/MT (USD 322-327) on FoB Japan basis. Thus the steel mill has raised bids by Yen 500/MT (USD 4).

Dongkuk Steel is a leading EAF steelmaker with an annual steelmaking capacity of 3.60 MnT and total annual production capacity of 8 MnT out of which 70% are Hot Rolled Products and 30% are Cold Roll Products.

Dongkuk steel heard to have bought Japanese H2 at JPY 39,500/MT, CFR level last week but presently most of the Japanese suppliers are expecting for price levels around JPY 41,800/MT (USD 369) which are higher by USD 10-15/MT than the bids placed by most of the South Korean importers right now.

Few Japanese suppliers were heard to offers H2 grade scrap at JPY 41,300/MT (USD 364), CFR which is less by Yen 500/MT than their present offers but buying interest was learned to have remained low with no trades being reported

Hyundai Steel resumed operations at B&C hot rolling mill-

An accident had last week at Dangjin factory of Hyundai Steel, probably could have affected its daily production capacity which is around 3700 MT per day. However, as per the latest updates, the company has resumed operations at its B and C hot rolling mill yesterday.

On 13th Dec, Japan’s leading EAF steel producer – Tokyo Steel raised domestic scrap purchase prices for the third time in Dec’17. In its last price revision, the steelmaker had raised scrap purchase prices by JPY 500/MT (USD 5) at all five works in Japan. Now H2 scrap fetches JPY 37,000/MT (USD 327) at largest work in central Japan-Tahara.