Taiwan's Feng Hsin Keeps Rebar, Scrap Prices Stable

Taiwan's largest rebar producer Feng Hsin Steel, headquartered in Taichung, Central Taiwan, has decided to keep its rebar sales prices and procurement prices for locally-sourced scrap stable over the April 7-10 period to monitor market changes in the near term, a company official confirmed on Wednesday.

The mini mill in Taiwan postponed its weekly pricing meeting to April 7 instead of Monday as it wanted to get a better understanding of local steel market conditions after the public holiday over April 2-3 for the Children's Day and the Qingming Festival.

Thus, for business till this Friday, Feng Hsin is continuing to offer its 13MM dia rebar at TWD 14,300/MT (USD 475/MT) ex-works, and its locally sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap remains unchanged at TWD 6,600/MT, according to the official.

Feng Hsin's rebar sales improved significantly after a sharp fall of TWD 500/MT in the offering price last week, Mysteel Global learned. "Our sales (for construction steel) achieved the best performance since March," the company's official disclosed.

Global scrap prices continued their downward trend recently. As of April 7, the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap, a key price reference for Taiwan's scrap and rebar markets, came in at USD 200/MT CFR Taiwan, down USD 7/MT on week though the decrease had moderated a little compared with the weekly decline of USD 13/MT recorded one week earlier. During the same period, Japanese H2 scrap saw a large week-on-week decline of USD 15/MT to reach USD 205/MT CFR Taiwan, according to a local market source.

In parallel, steel scrap prices in China also weakened persistently. For example, Shagang Group, China's largest electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steelmaker, has been busy trimming its scrap procurement price starting April almost daily, with the latest cut of another Yuan 50/MT (USD 7.1/MT) on April 8 taking the total decline in April to Yuan 270-280/MT, as Mysteel Global reported.

However, some local scrap suppliers in Taiwan have slowed the pace of shipments as their scrap stocks are not very high for the moment and they are not willing to sell at the current low price. At the same time, scrap buying prices in Turkey have seen some signs of recovery recently, which helped to ease the pessimism in Taiwan's scrap market.

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