CIS longs exporters studied the market carefully (the situation in which has been almost unchanged in the past week) and returned from the holidays offering June rolling. Demand for rebar remains sluggish, while interest in wire rod is still high. Still, according to expectations, suppliers have followed Turkish mills’ upward policy introduced back in mid-April. Only Metinvest International S.A. is still out of the market, planning to define quotations of June wire rod in the next two weeks.
Recently prices for Turkish material have started growing at a much higher pace, sellers adding at least $20/t every week. This has obviously influenced prices of CIS sellers for June output. In particular, whereas in the first half of the week offers of rebar from ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih came at $660-670/t FOB (+$10/t in two weeks), later the supplier added another $10/t, pointing to competitors' quotations. Prices for the producer’s wire rod have gained $20/t since mid-April too.
BMZ has also started offering June production of rebar, its initial quotations being $55/t higher than the latest contract levels for May rolling. Yet, traders believe the supplier will be forced to cut at least $10/t when closing a deal taking into account poor demand for the product.
At the same time, prices for long steel from ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih to the EU have grown even higher during the last two weeks – by EUR 14-21/t ($35-45/t). Quotations of rebar from BMZ to Poland have not changed much in three weeks.
Far Eastern buyers show somewhat firmer demand for Russian wire rod. Evraz Holding has sold out the remainder of May material at $695/t FOB ($10/t up m-o-m) there. However, the supplier has raised prices for June material by $5-10/t in view of bullish trend in the region. Besides, quotations of Chinese wire rod are expected to go further up.
Suppliers of structurals have also managed to increase their quotations somewhat on the back of growing export prices for rebar and wire rod everywhere. In particular, Evraz Holding has reportedly closed sales of 45-100 mm equal angle and 100-160 mm, 200-300 mm UPN channel to be produced in May by Petrovsky (Ukraine) at $710-725/t FOB Black Sea (the upper end of the range – $25/t up in three weeks) to Europe and the Middle East.
( Source: www.metalexpert-group.com )