Bangladesh: Active restocking continues to push up imported scrap prices

Imported scrap offers to steel mills in Bangladesh continued to move up after a few deals were concluded recently. There were active deals by the steel mills for HMS and shredded material in containers amid limited bulk offers from suppliers, sources informed SteelMint.

Recent deals and offer

• Around 1,000 t of UK-origin shredded scrap was booked at $580-585/t CFR Chittagong, towards last weekend.
  
  
• Fresh offers for shredded scrap of UK/EU-origin in containers are at $585-590/t CFR Chittagong levels, up $10/t w-o-w. However, no fresh deal heard to have been concluded, owing to high offers.
  
  
• Around 4,000 t of UK-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) have been booked by a steel mill at $565/t CFR, Chittagong. Fresh offers for UK/EU-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) being are at $570/t CFR/t CFR levels.
  
  
• Another 2,500 t of UK-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) in containers was heard booked at around $550-555/t CFR, towards the beginning of the week.
  
  

Most of the major mills remained active in booking fresh slots for Dec'21 shipments. High offers from the imported scrap market and increasing domestic scrap prices kept mini mills on the sidelines.

There were rumors of a bulk EU HMS scrap cargo of around 35,000 t getting booked at $565-570/t CFR Chittagong . However, the deal remained unconfirmed till the time of publishing this report.

No firm offers were heard from Japanese and USWC suppliers on limited offers and vessel availability issues.

Domestic rebar prices remain unchanged

The increased rebar prices are yet to be accepted by end-users and there has been a dip in real estate activity. Hence, rebar consumption has slowed down for the time being, despite this being the peak demand season.

Major steel mills in Bangladesh are offering rebar (10-16 mm) at BDT 73,000-75,000/t ($853-876/t) exy-Chittagong-largely stable on a weekly basis. Dhaka-based plants have raised offers to BDT 71,000/t ($830/t) on exy basis. Due to high prices of imported ferrous scrap as well as escalating power costs, production costs of mills have moved up considerably. Therefore, mills have kept rebar prices firm.

Outlook
Imported scrap offers are likely to remain high. However, buyers would remain active in making fresh bookings for Dec'21 shipments.