Bangladesh: Mills lower rebar offers despite higher imported scrap prices

Bangladesh's steel and scrap market observed mixed sentiments this week. Prices of imported scrap in containers continued to head north. However few mills in Dhaka lowered their rebar offers on demand concerns.

Bulk scrap booking from US: - A leading Bangladesh's steel mill booked 32,000 tonnes (t) of bulk US origin scrap mix (shredded plus HMS) for Jul'21 shipments. The deal was concluded at around $530-535/t, CFR Chittagong, for the shredded material. However, sources reported price level of this deal to be at $525/t CFR.

No firm offers for bulk Japanese H2 were heard. SteelMint's assessment for Japanese H2 stands steady at $535/t CFR.

Imported scrap offers in containers up w-o-w: Imported scrap offers moved up week-on-week (w-o-w). However, market activities and trade remained slow post-budget announcement last week. On the other hand, market players believe that domestic scrap would be more preferable as compared to imported.

• SteelMint's assessment for shredded from the UK stands at $535-540/t CFR, up by $7/t w-o-w.
  
  
• A trader sold around 2,000 t of Brazil and West Africa-based HMS at $510/t CFR.
  
  

Domestic rebar offers in Dhaka down: Local rebar and billet offers in Bangladesh saw a drop against last week with monsoons approaching. However, major mills kept their rebar offers firm at around BDT 70,000-72,500/t exw-Chittagong. On the other side, Dhaka-based mills lowered rebar offers from BDT 69,000/t to BDT 66,000/t exw, down by BDT 3,000/t ($35) w-o-w.

Similarly, billet and local scrap prices also witnessed a correction. SteelMint's assessment for local shipyard prices corrected by BDT 1,500/t w-o-w to BDT 47,500/t exy-Chittagong.