Though the Asian billet market has been stuck this week due to the holidays in a number of countries, some deals at higher levels have been reported recently.
In particular, a contract for 30,000 mt of ex-Indonesia billet has been signed at $485/mt FOB this week, up from the previous contracts for around 20,000 mt at $475-480/mt FOB done last week. “I would not say this is an uptrend itself, but the market stopped falling. Dexin stil could not sell at $490/mt FOB [the latest offers], but maybe next week,” a Singapore-based trader said.
Though the official ex-China 3SP billet offers are at $490-500/mt FOB at the moment, the latest negotiations and small deals were still at $480/mt FOB, market sources said. This proves that the market in general is still only preparing to accept higher prices.