Billet
Billet price was upward due to the limited
supply and lower inventory at warehouses from USD 568/mt to USD 583/mt ex-work including VAT, but on Wednesday market was a
little calm.
Long Products
Higher billet price made rebar market
upward from USD 647/mt to USD 659/mt ex-work by end of the week. By managing the supply level
and offering non-standard products, mills offered their allocations at IME, but
as expected, rebar transactions were not pleasant.
Upward rebar market made I-beam also up
from USD 702/mt to USD 747/mt ex-work including VAT.
Flat Products
HRC 2 mm thickness was USD 841 /mt ex-work Mobarakeh on Saturday,
which reached USD 846/mt by Wednesday. Average HRC price
was decreasing due to weak demand. It seems that price of this product has
reached its bottom.
Since HRP price has reached the bottom, sellers
were resisting against any price reduction and Oxin co HRP average price
remained at around USD 848/mt ex-work including VAT.
As CRC consumers’ holiday time is coming, its upward
trend has started and average price rose from USD 1135/mt to USD 1145/mt.
HDG market had a limited fluctuation, but no
serious change was seen in practice.
Weekly Analysis:
In the world market:
Steel scrap price
has remained almost stable. Despite lower demand
in Turkey, sellers do not want to reduce prices, as billet price has remained
constant. Considering oil
price of USD80/ barrel, billet price do not have much scope to decrease. Even stagnation of Chinese
market did not have the power to change billet price last week. Flat products prices
have remained almost unchanged in China domestic market as well as in other markets. In general, as it
was said before, billet and flat products prices have reached the bottom. With the end of rainy
season and imroving flood problems in China, a temporary demand will probably
enter the market next month. Investment of Arabs
in Turkey, which is expected in the last quarter of this year, will help to
stimulate this market and will raise price of scrap, while the available
factors show that there is no possibility of a drop in price.
In the domestic market:
Last week, Iran domestic market finally came
to the conclusion that billet supply limit is real and that is why its price
has reached the bottom, so customers started buying and improved prices at IME
( Iran Mercantile Exchange). Credit supplies
also contributed to this price increase. This affected the
rebar market. Rebar producers did not have attractive supplies, that's why rebar
offers were not welcomed, but the increase in the price of billet raised base
price of DRI and rebar. Higher DRI price justifies the increase
in billet price last week, especially since scrap price also increased.
When power cut issue improves, billet
production will increase and this will rise DRI price because it will increase
its demand. Another issue that
has affected price of billet is the problem of scrap supply. Scrap
supply depends on the recession or boom in construction market, in recession
conditions, scrap supply decreases all over the world, and this matter has
greatly affected the steel market in the last two months, so the possibility of
price recovery is very weak.
CBI average ex-rate for Steel Products
(SANA): Rials 372,311/ 1USD
14 Aug 2023
M.Chitsaz
Iran Steel News Bulletin
IFNAA.IR
IRSTEEL.COM