Ruble Depreciation Likely to Pull Down Russian Billet Export Offers

Ruble is witnessing continuous depreciation against USD from past two weeks. On 17 Mar'20, Ruble slipped heavily to 76.8 against USD, to hit 5-year low mark. The event has managed to pull down the billet export offers from the country.

Yesterday 18 Mar'20, the country was learned offering billets to the China at USD 395/MT, CFR, i.e.at USD 370-375/MT, FoB levels. The same was at USD 385/MT, FoB levels during the start of this week.

And today (on 19 Mar'20) Ruble got further depreciated and was being traded at RUB 81.94 till 05:12 UTC, XE currency chart showed. With this event, it is expected that Russian billet export offers could witness acute drop.

Russia is world's leading exporter of the billets. During CY19, the country exported approximately 14.69 MnT of billets. Taiwan, Mexico, Belgium, Turkey, and Philippines were the top billet importers for the country, with 3.74 MnT, 2.11 MnT, 1.75 MnT, 1.15 MnT, and 0.97 MnT of billet imports respectively. However, during CY19, the country witnessed a Y-o-Y drop of 9% from 16 MnT during CY18.

The below table shows the top billet importers of Russia in CY19:

Source: SteelMint Stats