The Brazilian pig iron market is generally stable in early August. Despite having seen some movement in recent weeks, an estimate for the price increase driven by new contracts could not be confirmed, local market participants tell Kallanish.

“During last week of July two deals were reported for nearly 40,000 tonnes and 30,000t of pig iron, to Turkey and the US respectively. Although fob prices of these were at $320-324/tonne, the Brazilian market did not follow the increase.

The Brazilian market is showing slow demand for pig iron, while awaiting new transactions in September to raise prices, another source comments. “Local mills do not have availability of material for export, nor pig iron in stock. Most producers are monitoring the market and evaluating how to adapt their production to new demand in September,” he adds.

According to market participants, the average pig iron export price is at $315/t fob Brazil.

The latest data from to Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (Mdic) show that the country increased its pig iron exports both monthly and cumulatively year-on-year in July.

Brazil shipped 155,520 tonnes of pig iron during July. This volume was up by 42.1% or 45,210t more compared to the same month in 2018, but -39.6% lower than June`s 252,720t. Pig iron exports over the first seven months increased to 1,394,024t or by 42% when compared to the January-July period of 2018.

The main destination for Brazilian pig iron in the period was the US which took 45% of the country's total exports. Holland was the second-largest importer with a share of 20%, followed by Taiwan and Mexico with shares of 11% and 8.3%, respectively.

Pig iron exports had an fob value of $50.5 million in July, or 8.9% more y-o-y, while the cumulative export value was $505.2m, up by 34.0% compared to the same period in 2018. The average pig iron export value year-to-date is $362/t fob or -5.7% less than in the same period of 2018, Mdic confirms.