Taiwan Feng Hsin holds rebar, scrap prices for 3rd week

Feng Hsin Steel, Taiwan's largest rebar producer headquartered in Taichung in central Taiwan, has decided to roll over its rebar list prices and buying prices for local scrap for the third week for transactions over May 22-26, despite the recovery in global scrap prices, a company official confirmed on Tuesday.

For business negotiations till this Friday, Feng Hsin continues to offer its list price for 13mm dia rebar at TWD 19,400/tonne ($632/t), the same level since the start of this month, and its buying price for local HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap also stays unchanged on week at TWD 10,900/t, according to the official.

Global scrap prices delivered to Taiwan have witnessed some recovery over the past week, with the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 material reaching $365/t CFR Taiwan as of May 22, higher by $10/t from one week before, and the price of Japan-origin H2 scrap edging up $5/t on week to $370/t CFR Taiwan, according to a Taiwan market source.

However, sentiment in Taiwan's steel market has not seen significant improvement so far given the lackluster demand from local end-users and the depressed performance in mainland China's steel market, Mysteel Global was told.

Feng Hsin has started to cut power consumption this month, one month earlier than the usual curbs over June-September, given the scarce new orders for rebar from downstream customers.

"Mini-mills in Taiwan can get some discounts on electricity prices if they join the power rationalization scheme in May this year, which can help to lower their production costs to some extent," the company official explained.

Finished steel prices in mainland China have been hovering low over the past week, which aggravated the wait-and-see sentiment in Taiwan's steel market, he added.

For example, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,791/tonne ($538/t) including the 13% VAT as of May 22, losing Yuan 22/t from one week ago.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

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