- Summer holiday season, liquidity constraints limit bookings
- Competitive discounting persists despite stable official prices
The UAE rebar market entered the August sales cycle on a cautious note, with the country’s benchmark producer keeping domestic rebar prices unchanged from July as subdued construction demand continued to outweigh elevated production costs. The rollover reflects mills’ efforts to preserve margins while remaining competitive in a market characterised by slow order inflows and cautious purchasing.
Emirates Steel has maintained its August offer for 12-32 mm rebar at AED 2,921/t ($795/t) exw, unchanged m-o-m. The offer remains valid on 90-day letter of credit (LC) terms, while an additional AED 92/t ($25/t) surcharge continues to apply to 8 mm rebar.
Market participants said the domestic rebar market remains stable but lacks momentum as the summer holiday season continues to weigh on construction activity. Contractors are purchasing material only against confirmed project requirements amid persistent liquidity constraints, limiting fresh bookings and reducing the need for inventory replenishment. As a result, producers have opted to maintain prices rather than attempt further increases.
Other domestic and regional suppliers are also expected to keep their August offers broadly unchanged, with market participants seeing limited scope for significant price movements under current market conditions. While relatively high production costs continue to underpin official prices, weak end-user demand has compelled suppliers to adopt a more flexible pricing strategy to secure orders.
According to sources, actual transactions have frequently been concluded at around AED 2,900-2910/t ($790-793/t) exw/CPT, below official list prices, as mills continue to offer selective discounts to attract buyers. Industry participants said these concessions reflect increasingly challenging trading conditions and intense competition for limited order volumes rather than any meaningful improvement in underlying demand.
The UAE has expanded its billet supply base after HBIS Group’s Tangshan branch received an Emirates Conformity Assessment Scheme (ECAS) certification for B500B square steel billets, valid from 20 July 2026 to 19 July 2029. The approval increases procurement flexibility for local re-rollers and steelmakers while further strengthening China’s presence in the UAE steel supply chain.
According to Chinese customs data, China’s billet exports to the UAE rose around 450% y-o-y to 330,000 t in H1CY’26, from 60,000 t a year earlier, supported by the growing competitiveness of Chinese semis and an expanding pool of ECAS-certified suppliers.
On the raw material logistics front, market participants are also monitoring the temporary closure of the AGSI yard, which will remain shut for five days from 25-29 July as part of an operational streamlining programme. The company has announced a gate-in cut-off of 24 July at 11:59 pm, with all vehicles entering before the deadline to be unloaded before the closure.
Operations are scheduled to resume on 30 July at 5:00 am. While the shutdown may temporarily delay scrap inflows and prompt suppliers to advance deliveries, market participants do not expect it to materially disrupt raw material availability or domestic rebar supply, given comfortable inventories and subdued procurement activity.
Overall, the UAE rebar market remains in a wait-and-watch mode. Market participants expect prices to remain broadly stable through August, with the market direction likely to depend on the pace of construction activity after the summer holiday period, movements in imported billet and scrap costs, and regional trade flows. Until downstream steel demand improves, mills are expected to continue balancing price discipline with competitive discounting to secure limited bookings.
Leave a Reply