South East Asia’s imported billet prices remained supported as the futures market remained bullish with Chinese buyers turning active for bookings this week. SteelMint’s bi-weekly assessments of imported billet offers in to South East Asia are currently at $695-700/tonne (t), CFR Manila, up by $4/t against the last assessment made on 13 Jul’21.
Vietnam billet export offers rise on improved Chinese bids: BF-route billet offers from the country increased by around $25/t, on a w-o-w basis. According to SteelMint’s sources, BF-route offers are at $690/t FoB. The Vietnam government has proposed an export duty of 5% on billets exports, SteelMint learnt from an official notification. The country aims to ease domestic steel prices with the help of this move.
Indonesian steel mill concludes billet export deal for China: As per latest deals tracked by SteelMint, a leading Indonesian steel mill has concluded a billet export deal of 20,000 t to China at $705-710/t CFR levels. Steel billet exports by Indonesia to China have increased by over 150% in the Jan-May’21 period to 0.73 mn t. In an effort to cut steel output, the Chinese government is putting emphasis on enhancing imports of semi-finished steel.
Thailand billet import offers remain supported: Indicative imported billet offers into the country are hovering in the range of $680/t CFR from various origins.
According to data maintained with SteelMint, the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) rebar futures Oct’21 contracts on 16 Jul closed at RMB 5,559/t ($859/t), up d-o-d RMB 13/t ($2/t). Tracking the hike in futures, domestic steel billet prices in China’s Tangshan remained stable at RMB 5,140/t ($796/t) inclusive of 13% VAT on 16 Jul’ 21.
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