Taiwan Feng Hsin cuts rebar, scrap prices by $6.8/t

Feng Hsin Steel, Taiwan's largest rebar producer, has further cut its rebar list price and buying price for locally-sourced scrap for the second week, both by TWD 200/tonne ($6.8/t) respectively over July 6-10 to reflect the global scrap price softening recently, a company official confirmed.

With the latest adjustment, Feng Hsin's offering price of its 13mm dia rebar has been trimmed to TWD 14,600/t ex-works, or back to the level at the start of June, and its procurement price for the locally-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap has been reduced to a 2.5 month low of TWD 6,900/t, Mysteel Global was told.

"As expected, global steel scrap prices had been on the downturn in the past week, as demand from Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia, as usual, has slowed down in summer because ofpower supply tightness," the Feng Hsin official explained.

Taiwan's mini-mills usually slow down their production pace over June-September because of the annual power supply rationalization, seizing the opportunity to complete the annual maintenance on their steelmaking and rolling facilities, and Feng Hsin is no exception, as it will launch a series of overhauls later this month to conduct repairs and maintenance on its devices, Mysteel Global understood.

As of July 6, the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap, a key reference price for Taiwan's scrap and rebar markets, receded another $8/t on week to $232/t CFR Taiwan, and that for Japanese H2 scrap witnessed a on-week decline of 10/t to $235/t CFR Taiwan, according to the Taiwan market sources.

Lower global steel scrap prices have been benefiting all the Asian steel mills with more supplies at lower prices, and Tokyo Steel Manufacturing, Japan's top electric-arc-furnace steel producer, for example, cut its scrap buying prices on July 4 again by Yen 500-1,500/t ($4.7-14/t) for all grades to its three of four works and a steel distribution center, as reported.

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel global and SteelMint Research.