Taiwan's Feng Hsin rolls over rebar, scrap prices 2nd week

Feng Hsin Steel, Taiwan's largest rebar producer headquartered in Taichung, Central Taiwan, has remained both its rebar list price and procurement price of locally-sourced scrap unchanged over August 30-September 3, or the second week in a row on noting the lackluster rebar demand from end-users, a company official confirmed.

Until this friday, Feng Hisn's list price of 13mm dia rebar stays at TWD 22,600/tonne ($815/t) EXW, or the same since August 16, and its buying price of locally-generated HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap stays at TWD 11,400/t, according to the company official.

Until last week, new rebar orders from the end-users in Taiwan had remained scarce last week even though Feng Hsin had conceded some profits by agreeing on lower prices in actual sales, and "most of them (end-users) prefer to stay on the sidelines to monitor the market, as they will still have deliveries to come in with some of their earlier orders yet fulfilled," he commented.

September is usually a traditional peak season for steel consumption in Taiwan with the weather getting pleasantly cool in autumn, but so far this year, "we have not seen any significant recovery in demand by now," the Feng Hsin official shared.

On the other hand, modest easing in global scrap prices has also put the rebar buyers off, as once the trend is definite, rebar prices in Taiwan will probably follow downward due to the close correlation of these two prices, Mysteel Global understands

As of August 30, the price of US-sourced HMS 1&2 80:20 scrap was reported at $450/t CFR Taiwan, unchanged on week after the previous week's $12/t gain, while that of Japan-origin H2 scrap already reversed down $5/t on week to $475/t CFR Taiwan, local market source said.

Japan's domestically-generated H2 grade scrap prices weakened by Yen 500-1,000/tonne ($4.6-9/t) on the week not only for exports but also for domestic sales last week with smoother scrap deliveries to domestic mills and fewer inquiries from abroad, as reported.

To deal with the quiet market, Feng Hsin will still offer some discounts off its list prices in spot sales this week, hoping to attract some buying, but the competition from the other mini-mills in Taiwan will intensify as they may deepen the discount too if demand from end-users stays sullen in the coming days, according to the official.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com

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