Taiwan's Feng Hsin rolls over rebar, scrap prices

Feng Hsin Steel, Taiwan's largest rebar producer headquartered in Taichung in central Taiwan, has decided to roll over its rebar list price and procurement price for local scrap for transactions over March 11-15 to monitor the market changes this week, a company official confirmed on Tuesday.

For business discussions till this Friday, the mini-mill continues to offer its 13mm dia rebar at TWD 19,400/tonne ($616/t) EXW after the decrease over the prior week, and its buying price for local HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap also stays unchanged on week at TWD 10,700/t, according to the official.

Prices of global scrap delivered to Taiwan maintained the downtrend over the past week. As of March 11, the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap came in at $355/t CFR Taiwan, edging down $3/t from the previous week, and the price of Japan-origin H2 scrap slipped by $10/t on week to $365/t CFR Taiwan, according to a local market source.

However, the Taiwanese mini-mill still prefers to hold its rebar list price and buying price for local scrap to monitor the performance in demand this week, as spring is the traditional peak season for steel consumption with the pleasant weather, Mysteel Global noted.

As for the steel market in mainland China, finished steel prices weakened continuously with the slow recovery of demand from end-users and the pressure from high-level steel inventories.

For example, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of its domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,796/tonne ($529/t) including the 13% VAT as of March 11, sliding by Yuan 142/t on week.

Transactions of construction steel in the physical market stayed low in China, with the daily trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses nationwide under Mysteel's regular survey averaging 101,178 tonnes/day over March 5-11, much lower than the average of more than 200,000 t/d for the peak season in March, though it had improved by 12.8% from the previous week.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel and BigMint.