Taiwan's Feng Hsin cuts rebar list price by $7/t

Feng Hsin Steel, Taiwan's largest rebar producer headquartered in Taichung in central Taiwan, has decided to cut its rebar list prices by TWD 200/tonne ($6.5/t) on week for the transactions over July 17-21 to reflect the poor demand from local end-users, a company official confirmed on Tuesday.

With the latest adjustment, the mini-mill is offering its 13mm dia rebar at TWD 19,300/t for business discussions till this Friday, while its procurement price for local HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap remains at TWD 10,900/t, unchanged on week, according to the official.

Feng Hsin is in no hurry to adjust its scrap buying price this week, as price trends for global scrap delivered to Taiwan were mixed over the past week, Mysteel Global learned.

As of July 17, the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 material was at $360/t CFR Taiwan, lower by another $8/t from one week before, while the price of Japan-origin H2 scrap gained $5/t on week to $380/t CFR Taiwan, according to a local market source.

The decrease in Feng Hsin's rebar list price was mainly the company's response to the persistent weakness in demand from end-users, which is pressuring local steelmakers to concede more in their offering prices to facilitate sales.

Besides, steel prices in mainland China have retreated somewhat with the thin sales in the physical market, which also aggravated the negative sentiment in Taiwan's steel market and dragged down local steel prices, Mysteel Global noted.

For example, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,828/tonne ($534/t) including the 13% VAT as of July 14, down Yuan 6/t from one week earlier.

Over July 10-14, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking averaged 155,402 tonnes/day, still low though higher by 10,843 t/d compared with the previous week.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com

Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com

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