Bangladesh: Steel Mills Gradually Resume Production, Imported Scrap Offers Stable

This week, many of the steel mills in Chittagong and Dhaka have resumed some of their furnaces partially and are beginning to improve the production as labour shortage issue was sorted to some extent. Last week, a few large mills have resumed production up at minimal levels. However, even now there is now sign of full scale opening of the industry for the near term as covid-19 cases continue to accelerate in the country.

"Like many other steelmakers in the area, we have been running our furnaces in single shift with minimal work-force since a week, while rolling mill was resumed since yesterday for 12 hours a day, before which it was completely shut for several weeks" Shared a Steelmaker from Dhaka.

SteelMint's assessment for Shredded 211 scrap stands at USD 285/MT CFR Chittagong, almost same as last week's report, with offers remaining around this level, however no new trades in containers were witnessed this week as yet, as buyers are expecting correction in prices on account of global fall post recent Turkey booking.

Not many HMS offers were witnessed, with HMS 1&2 (80:20) standing at around USD 260-264/MT CFR, till recently, while no recent deals were confirmed after decent HMS bookings in containers last week, by 4-5 mills.