Vietnam: Imported scrap trade sluggish ahead of Tet holidays, offers up

Imported scrap prices into Vietnam inched up slightly. However, trade cooled off and, overall, the market has slowed down amid limited inquiries, owing to the upcoming Tet holidays, SteelMint understands.

• Offers for bulk Japanese H2 are at $510-515/t CFR Vietnam, up by $5/t w-o-w.
  
  
• No firm bulk scrap offers were reported from USA. However, bulk HMS price indications were assessed at around $500-510/t CFR Vietnam levels.
  
  

Domestic scrap price up further: Domestic scrap prices in Vietnam have increased further on limited availability amid Covid concerns and the hike in imported scrap offers. The procurement prices of H1 and H2 grades are at VND 12,500/kg ($543/t) and VND 12,200/kg ($530/t), respectively, a marginal rise of 100 VND /kg ($4.3/t) compared to prices assessed on 17 Jan'22.

Billets export offers unchanged: Vietnam's BF-route billets export offers stood unchanged at $620/t, FOB with no deals concluded.

SE Asian market overview:

• Indonesia: The most-preferred PNS grade scrap was offered at around $510/t CFR Jakarta basis last week. Indonesia's Dexin Steel's phase I expansion began on 18 Jan'22 with the ground-breaking ceremony of its third blast furnace in the presence of several of China's steel industry luminaries. This may increase scrap consumption in the future.
  
  
• Thailand: Central America-origin HMS 1&2 (70:30) offers have increased slightly by $5/t w-o-w to $415/t CFR levels. However, no deals were reported. Thailand's ferrous scrap imports were recorded at 110,000 t in Dec'21, down 31% m-o-m against 160,000 t in November. Australia was the largest supplier with 15,201 t, followed by Panama, USA, and Singapore. The country's scrap imports stood at 1.58 mnt in CY'21, up 17% y-o-y.
  
  

Outlook

Many market players believe that post-holidays will be promising for the steel industry when the pandemic is also brought under control and construction demand rebounds strongly. This is expected to boost scrap procurements as well.