Raw material and billet price rises have pushed wire rod prices in Southeast Asia up further this week. Both ASEAN region-based mills and Chinese sellers have become more bullish.
The most competitive latest offers for ex-Malaysia wire rod have been reported to the Philippines at $625-635/mt CFR. At the same time, an Indonesian seller, who managed to sell good volumes of both rebar and wire rod grade billets for March shipment recently at increased prices, will ask for at least $620/mt FOB for wire rod, translating to $645/mt CFR Manila. Last week, official offers for ex-ASEAN wire rod were at $620-650/mt CFR, but bids were lower, at $605-610/mt CFR at the highest. But this week, the tradable level in the Philippines has reached $620-625/mt CFR already as customers are afraid that offers will keep moving up.
To distant markets like Europe, ex-ASEAN offers from traders have reached $700/mt CFR, which translates to around $630-640/mt FOB depending on the freight.
Offers for ex-China wire rod have been heard at $600-620/mt FOB, edging up by $10/mt compared to January 6.
“Rare purchases have been observed over the past week amid the approach of the Chinese New Year holiday (January 21-27), while buyers still think prices are too high, and so they have been cautious in building up stocks for the winter, though the inventory has been at a relatively low level in the local market, which will bolster wire rod prices to some extent,” an international trader said.
As of January 13, rebar futures at the Shanghai Future Exchange are standing at RMB 4,173/mt ($620/mt), edging up by RMB 66/mt ($9.8/mt) or 1.6 percent since January 6.
$1 = RMB 6.7292