After a rebound in Japanese scrap market and export offers was observed earlier this month, South Korean leading EAF steelmaker – Hyundai Steel has hiked its price for Japanese scrap procurement for the first time since Mar’19, after observing 12 successive price cuts during the 8 month-long downtrend in the market.
In bids presented last week, Hyundai Steel has increased the price for Japanese H2 scrap’s procurement by JPY 2000/MT (USD 18 )and the bid presently stands at JPY 24,000/MT (USD 220) FOB Japan, against the JPY 22,000/MT (USD 202) level in Oct’19, when the prices had fallen to 3 year low levels, however, no major procurement is yet reported at the revised price range while fresh bids for other grades of Japanese scrap are yet to be announced.
The downtrend in the Japanese scrap market ended with a rebound in this month’s Kanto-Tender’s bids resulting in a sharp increase in the export offers, followed by an uptick in the domestic prices as well. Other Korean steelmakers have also raised their bids for Japanese scrap recently, after a month-long standoff between Korean buyers and Japanese suppliers on export offers, ended with a rise in prices.
Tokyo Steel has raised scrap purchase prices at their works, with its Utsunomiya works located in Kanto witnessing a hike by a total of JPY 1000/ MT (USD 9) in Nov’19 till now.
It was reported that even as purchase volume at JPY 24,000/MT levels to South Korean mills have not been very high, the Japanese suppliers are already looking even higher offers now, with exports to Vietnam strengthening in the recent weeks.
~ Inputs: SteelDaily
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