Bangladeshi ferrous scrap buyers were cautiously buying this week as offers have gone sharply up. High input costs forced medium and small-scale steelmakers to push rebar prices up by least BDT500/mt on Wednesday. Large steel producers like BSRM and AKS maintained rebar prices flat to stimulate sales. Bids for imported scrap were lower by $10-15/mt than current offers, even as suppliers sought bulk buyers in the country.
In other bulk markets, offers for US West Coast-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) were higher than $355/mt cfr Chattogram with limited buying interest. With Turkish mills likely to accept $325/mt cfr Turkey levels Bangladeshi mills might revise bids to materialize deals.
Bangladeshi mills find bulk bookings non-viable amid weak steel demand. Also, there is a lot of ambiguity about the second and third waves of COVID-19 in the supplier countries. Mixed sentiments are keeping mills from closing deals at higher prices.
The daily Davis Index for containerized shredded, Wednesday, settled at $359.17/mt cfr Chattogram, up by $0.42/mt from Tuesday. Offers were in the range of $360-365/mt cfr Bangladesh against bids of upto $345-350/mt cfr Chattogram. A few mills walked away after booking shredded at around $345/mt cfr Chattogram from South America and Australia. Buying interest in container deals at high prices is very limited.
The weekly Davis Index for containerized US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) settled at $343.57/mt cfr Chattogram, up by $1.07/mt from Tuesday with a few offers in the range $345-350/mt cfr Chattogram from Australia and the US depending on quality. Some mills are avoiding imports from the US and UK due to longer delivery schedules.
The daily index for Latin America-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) settled at $337/mt cfr Chattogram, up by $2/mt from Tuesday. Brazilian traders sought prices above $335-340/mt cfr Chattogram due to firm prices in their domestic market. Offers jumped for Latin American HMS #1 were in the range $340-345/mt cfr Chattogram.
In the domestic market, in line with the sharp rise in imported scrap prices, domestic scrap prices in the country moved up by at least BDT1,500/mt from late last week. Domestic shipbreaking scrap equivalent to P&S offered at BDT35,000-35,500/mt ex-yard Chattogram, up by BDT1,500/mt from a day earlier while HMS 1&2 (80:20) traded at BDT34,000-34,500/mt ex-yard Chattogram.
Billet and rebar prices by large steel producers like BSRM and AKS are flat at BDT57,000/mt and BDT54,500/mt ex-works, respectively. While most medium and small-scale producers raised rebar offers by BDT1,000-2,000/mt to BDT52,000-53,000/mt ex-works. On Wednesday, ship recyclers offered ship breaking plates at BDT40,800-41,000/mt ex-Chattogram yards.
($1= BDT84.77)