Pakistan: Imported Scrap Prices Range-Bound; Trades Remain Slow

Imported scrap offers to Pakistan have remained mostly range bound against the closing of last week. As trades remained slow, few suppliers have held their end, resisting any further sharp downfall in prices in the recent days, however buyers were looking for a downtrend.

SteelMint's assessment for Shredded 211 scrap from UK/Europe currently stand in the range of USD 295/MT CFR, inching down by USD 2-5/MT against beginning of last week. However, in comparison to the closing of last week when many European sellers had even offered at below USD 294/MT CFR levels, the prices showed marginal uptick.

Some trades for Shredded got concluded at USD 295-297/MT levels, although low buying interest kept many customers in wait and watch mode. As per the sources at the buyers and supplier side, the price level is not likely to drop sharply in the coming days.

HMS sales stood slow due to lower demand from the mills. UAE origin HMS observed some sales with HMS 1 super (no ci gi) being sold for USD 282-285/MT CFR and higher grade HMS sarya/PnS being traded at USD 295/MT CFR. Few offers for HMS 1&2 (ci gi 8-10%) was reportedly offered at USD 275/MT CFR.

Local scrap witnessed a downtrend - Amid falling prices of imported scrap in the last couple of weeks, local scrap offers have fallen by around PKR 1000/MT, with domestic bala billet also witnessing a downtrend by around PKR 1500/MT.

On the other hand, domestic finished steel offers stood more-or-less unchanged for yet another week, amid continued below average sales In the northern region, rebar's average offer prices were reported at around PKR 105,000-106,000/MT, ex-works (USD 679-686), while southern (Karachi region) steel mills are offering at PKR 107,000/MT (USD 692) ex-works.