April 2012 | Steel Tracker
Hike in South East Asian billet offers on scrap shortage: International Long Product Market Analysis
The billet import price hikes have failed to translate to wire rod offers.
Producers and re-rollers have come up against significant price hikes for imported billet as a shortage of scrap in the region allows exporters to cash in. Producers have resorted to buying billet on the international market to service their rebar and wire rod operations as stockpiles of scrap are drawn down.
However, the billet import price hikes have failed to translate to wire rod offers. CIS exporters have been quick to take advantage of the shifting fundamentals and have increased billet offer prices to region. For the coming week we expect buyers to remain cautious with many viewing the price hikes as temporary, however, if imports can remain competitive while the scrap problem persists we expect prices to remain stable going forward into May.
Turkish mills would have been well positioned to accommodate this increased demand outlook, however, the announced natural gas price hikes coupled with increased scrap offers may...
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