Weekly: Global Billet Market Overview

This week, global billet market remained silent with drop in offers from/in all the major billet trading nations. The two prime reasons which are currently disrupting the dynamics of the global billet market are; fallen Turkey's imported scrap prices and holidays in Far East and SE Asian countries.

The steel business across China and SE Asia have come to halt this week amid New Year and Tet holidays. The market has been stable and quiet. Most of the marketers have stocked up the inventories for post holidays. The majority of the marketers had started going off for the holidays since early Jan'2020 to have a long break, as, during these days not much trades are expected and the price movements are also minimal.

CIS-Billet export offers from the region witness marginal drop of USD 10-15/MT W-o-W amid fallen Turkey's imported scrap prices. This week, billet export assessment from CIS nations are at USD 390-400/MT, FoB Black Sea. However, this week Russia is heard to have book 10,000 MT billet; destination unknown at USD 395-400/MT, FoB Black Sea.

Iran- The country's escalated political tensions with U.S and decline in global billet prices resulted in fall in Iranian billet export prices too No billet export deal was reported from the country. SteelMint assessment for Iranian billet export offers is at USD 390-400/MT, FoB Iran, down USD 3/MT against last week.

China-Chinese domestic billet market was settled at RMB 3,300/MT, identical as last week. The market sentiments in the country were reported stable

Also, a new respiratory virus has been detected spreading in the Wuhan city, Hubei province of China, which is also known as industrial city of China and is one of the prime hub for Steel business. This virus is named Coronavirus. This virus is expected to affect adversely on the businesses; majorly steel, as Wuhan being the one of the prime industrial region. The travel restrictions have been imposed in multiple cities of Hubei province.

SE Asia- This week SE Asian billet import market was also seen following the global trend of market reticenceamid Tet holidays in Vietnam. However, the billet import offers in the region were reported stable and were assessed at USD 430-440/MT, CFR.

Imported scrap prices to Turkey have slid down further amid continued downturn since last week. In the latest booking concluded in recent, a Mediterranean region based steelmaker has booked a 28,000 MT bulk vessel from the UK branch of a global recycler comprising of HMS 1& 2 (80:20) scrap at USD 277/MT CFR Turkey, for February end shipment.

SteelMint's assessment for USA origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) currently stands at USD 282-283/MT, down by USD 5-6/MT against last week's closing.

Global Billet prices:

Source: SteelMint Research