The weekly Davis Index for CIS basic pig iron fell by $14/mt to $546/mt fob Black Sea on Friday amid sluggish demand and a downtrend in the global ferrous scrap market.
Deals were sporadic in the CIS export pig iron market with suppliers decreasing their offers to the US from $600/mt fob to $580-585/mt cfr. However, buyers’ activity remained low and bids were reported at $530-550/mt cfr. An international trader was heard to have sold a cargo of the CIS material to the US at $550/mt cfr, but further details of the transaction were not available at the time of publication.
Negotiations in the Italian imported pig iron market did not result in deals as buyers and sellers could not close the gap between offers, which varied at $580-585/mt cfr, and bids, which did not exceed $550/mt cfr. As a result, the weekly Davis Index for CIS pig iron in Italy declined by $5/mt to $565/mt cfr on Friday.
A Russian exporter sold around 3,000mt of pig iron to Western Europe at $570/mt fob Baltic Sea recently. The supplier targeted the same price level in negotiations with buyers from other outlets but found no interest.
The lowest bids for CIS pig iron were reported from Turkey, where importers were asking for the material at below $500/mt cfr this week. As a result, all exporters switched to alternative destinations.