Iran, one of the leading billet exporters, has continued to remain quiet for yet another week due to absence of allocations from mills owing to power outages.
No offers or deals for billet exports were concluded recently. Power outages and volatility in Chinese steel futures have kept Iranian mills away from offering billets for exports, informed Iran-based sources.
Iran’s steel exports, after getting impacted by Covid and export regulations, have seen an increase this year with the facilitation of export regulations. The export volumes of billets and blooms in the first four months of this Persian Year stood at 1.69 million tonnes (mn t), up by 26% compared to the corresponding period last year (CPLY).
Domestic billet trades absent on IME: Domestic steel sales on the Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) have been absent owing to escalating power outage issues in Iran. Last week, on the IME, around 107,500 tonnes (t) of billets were traded on 3 Aug’21 at an average sales price of 140,237 Iranian Rial, according to data received by SteelMint.
However, the slab export market in Iran has witnessed some trade this week. An Iranian mill has concluded an export tender for 40,000 t of slabs to South East Asia, as per SteelMint reports.
According to sources, the company concluded the tender at $705/t FoB Iran. The shipment is likely to be scheduled for Sept’21. Iranian slab export prices have fallen by around $40/t m-o-m.
Iran’s steel production falls sharply: Iran’s steel production has seen a sharp drop in Jul’21 on power outages. According to recent media reports, statistics from the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) show that production of steel in Jul’21 decreased sharply as compared to Jun’21, one of the reasons for which is power outages at steel producing units.
Production of long and flat products in the first four months of this year was reported to be 3.7 mn t and 2.8 mn t, down by 1% and 11%, respectively.
Leave a Reply