Bangladesh Govt Asks Ship Recyclers to Suspend Imports till 7th Apr

The Ministry of Industries asked the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association to stop the scrapped ship imports till 7th Apr'20 over Covid-19. Bangladesh is the world's largest buyer of scrapped ships.

SteelMint's reliable sources revealed that, five ships arrived & brought in for dismantling from other nations are kept in quarantine for 14 days at the outer anchorage of Chittagong port in Bangladesh.

The five ships reported are -

-- MV Cape Stefanie imported by SN Corporation
-- MV Stellar Rio by SN Corporation
-- MV Yu Hua by NR Ship Breaking Industries
-- MV Star Luck by KR Steel
-- MV Uso Lie imported by Asadi Steel Enterprise.

The Ministry of Industries further directed to the Bangladesh Ship Breakers and Recyclers Association to take necessary health measures, including raising awareness among officials, employees and workers working in the ship reprocessing industry area of Sitakunda.

The total tonnage reported last week in the Chittagong port was at 122,849 LDT.

As per SteelMint statistics report, the total numbers of ship demolished in Bangladesh in Feb'20 was marked at 19 with the volume of 288,467 Ldt, surge by 59.76% M-o-M as against 180,564 Ldt in Jan'20.

Local Industries Shut down

Local steel mills in Dhaka & Chittagong, Bangladesh are merely closed due to precautions over COVID-19 fears, SteelMint learned from its authentic sources

In addition, logistics constraints are also there in domestic market of Bangladesh, which has almost paused domestic steel trade activities.

However due to sufficient stock with the mills, they are trying to clear inventories with add on trade discount of about BDT 1,000-2,000 (USD 12-24)/MT on the quoted offers of rebar.

There are about 50-60 steel mills in Bangladesh, out of which the large mills are located in Chittagong, while remaining are located in Dhaka and surrounding locations.