Weekly: Global Billet Market Overview

The export offers from all the billet trading nations witnessed a marginal increase. However, no deals were reported during the week. Stability in global scrap prices and strong domestic demand in countries like Iran and India have backed the export offers to gain a marginal rise. Also, amid improving Chinese domestic billet demand, no distress in the billet import offers were witnessed in SE Asia due to offerings from China, unlike last week.

CIS-The billet export offers from the region witnessed a rise of USD 5/MT W-o-W amid increased global scrap prices. This week, billet export assessment from CIS nations were at USD 395-400/MT, FoB Black Sea.

Iran-The Iranian billet export offers witnessed a marginal increase amid active domestic demand. However, no export deals were reported during the week.

— SteelMint’s assessment for billet export offers from Iran is at USD 390-395/MT, FoB Iran, up USD 5/MT against last week.

— After getting blacklisted from FATF, the visibility on the country’s billet export market was quite blurry as it has given an impression that export offers from the country could drop. But active domestic demand has managed to keep the offers supported. The country’s steel mills have limited allocation till the end of Apr’20 as they have to offer sizable quantities in the domestic market by the end of current Iranian Year (21 Mar’19-20 Mar’20).

India- Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), a state-owned steel maker under the Ministry of Steel, has invited an e-tender for the export of 40,000 MT bloom and 20000 MT billets. The sizes for the same were reported to be, bloom; 150*150mm and 200*200mm, while that for billet were; 90*90mm and 65*65mm. The tender due date is 03 Mar’20.

SE Asia – SteelMint’s assessment for SE Asia billet import is at USD 410-415/MT, CFR identical as last week.

— The 5SP grade billet export offers from Vietnam were heard to have at USD 415/MT, FoB, up USD 5/MT against last week.

— This week, billet import offers in the SE Asian region remained stable. However, no deals were witnessed during the week. Stable global scrap prices have managed to keep the billet import sentiments balanced in the region. Also, amid improving the domestic billet market, no offers from China were spectated this week, which had disturbed the SE Asian billet market sentiments.

China-This week, the country’s domestic billet market was settled at RMB 3,060/MT, ex-Tangshan, including VAT, up RMB 50MT against last week. The country’s market sentiments are improving but with buoyancy.

Turkey  scrap prices remain stable

SteelMint assessment for the USA origin scrap HMS 1&2 (80:20) stands at around USD 280/MT CFR Turkey, identical to last week’s closing.

Global billet prices:

Source: SteelMint Research