Iran billet export market witnessed limited trades, as mills are firmly holding the offers at $370-380/t, FoB Iran, on some demand from SE Asian countries. Earlier this week, SteelMint reported KSC concluded 30,000t billet tender at $375-380/t, FoB Iran for China.
Although market participants believe, that $370-380/t, FoB price levels are now challenging to achieve, as buyers, especially from China are bidding at $360-365/t, on a FoB basis for the Iranian billets. Also, due to congestion at Chinese ports, the Iran-China freight has also increased and has reached to $30+ levels.
However, few reports have mentioned about a billet booking to SE Asia from Iran at $395-400/t, CFR, but SteelMint sources have denied about any such bookings.
SteelMint’s assessment for billet export offer from Iran has increased by $5-10 w-o-w and is currently at $370-375/t FoB Iran.
Trades in domestic billet market remain slow – Meanwhile, the IME (Iranian Mercantile Exchange; country’s commodity trading platform) was also reported silent; in terms of billet trades, as mills have violated the government’s price guidelines on Sunday (08 Jun’20), while Wednesday (17 Jun’20) was a national holiday. Hence, these two reasons have primarily led to trade silence in the domestic market for billets.
PS: Steel commodities are generally traded on Sundays & Wednesdays of the week over IME.
Future outlook: Since the export and domestic billet market witnessed no trades during this week, mills are expected to make a downward correction in the offers, possibly by next week, as they won’t get better realizations in the domestic market in coming weeks.
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