Bangladeshi buyers were largely away from purchasing imported ferrous scrap. Steel demand and prices in the country remain silent amid the COVID-19-related lockdown until Aug 5. Large-scale steelmakers have increased the production of oxygen and diverted it for medical use.
Most offices, industries, and factories are either closed or operating with a limited workforce.
Ferrous scrap inventories are piled up with most mills resulting in a lack of buying interest. Steel consumption also dropped significantly due to a pause in construction activities. Work at government infrastructure project sites, however, continues.
The daily Davis Index for containerized shredded, Monday, settled at $550/mt cfr Chattogram. Most sellers were only interested to sell in Pakistan where prices were more lucrative than other South Asian markets.
Only those mills with low inventories were in the market for ferrous scrap. These steelmakers lowered their bids by around $10/mt from the prior week.
In a silent market, the daily index for US-origin containerized HMS 1&2 (80:20) settled unchanged at $526.25/mt cfr Chattogram. The indexes for UK-origin and Australia-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) were at $515/mt and $523/mt cfr Chattogram, respectively, also flat.
The daily Davis Index for HMS 1&2 (80:20) from Latin America, Friday, was unchanged at $510/mt cfr Chattogram. Bids were in the range of $500-505/mt cfr Chattogram following the softness in global scrap prices.
Domestic steel prices for rebar and billet were unchanged. A sharp rise in ship vessels prices, which reached $620-630/ldt, forced Bangladeshi recyclers to offer domestic rolling and melting scrap at firm prices. Offers for scrapped vessels are higher by $10-20/ldt from a week ago.
($1=BDT84.79)