Posted on 25 Nov 2024
The Vietnamese hot rolled coil market continues to be sluggish; however, buying interest in wider-width Chinese HRC continues, Kallanish notes.
In recent weeks, Vietnamese buyers have turned to wider-width Chinese HRC to circumvent possible anti-dumping duties on imports.
An offer for 3-12mm thickness 1,500mm width boron-added Q235 HRC was heard late last week at $493/tonne cfr Vietnam. This compares with 2,000mm width boron-added Q235 HRC at $505/t cfr Hai Phong and $510/t cfr Ho Chi Minh. These Chinese-origin HRC offers are due for shipment by 10 January and are subject to final confirmation.
Some buying took place for 3-12mm thickness 2,000mm width Q235 grade HRC from China at $500/t cfr recently, Vietnamese trading sources say.
A trader who estimates 6,000-7,000 tonnes were booked last Thursday and Friday says that such buyers of 2,000mm width HRC think the ongoing AD case will not apply to their purchases.
Another says these are position cargoes because they are cheaper than current offers.
Among the Chinese mills exporting wider-width HRC is a tier-1 mill's shipment of 1,900mm width SAE 1006 HRC to Vietnam, Chinese trading sources note.
Previously, wider-width hot rolled imports were confined to hot rolled sheet, notes a Chinese trader who confirms the Vietnamese interest for Chinese wider-width HRC in the past 2-3 months.
As on-going antidumping investigations targeting Chinese and Indian HRC products of width up to 1,880mm are expected to end soon, retroactive or preliminary duties could be implemented soon thereafter.
Stock cargoes of Chinese SAE 1006 HRC are heard offered at around $510/t cfr. SAE grade 2-2.7mm thickness HRC is assessed at $505-515/t cfr, unchanged on-week.
South Korean and Japanese SAE 1006 HRC January-shipment offers are prevailing at $530/t cfr Vietnam and $540/t cfr respectively. An Indonesian mill’s SS400/SAE 1006 HRC offer is heard at $550/t cfr and Taiwanese SAE 1006 HRC at $555-560/t cfr.
Meanwhile, domestic mill Formosa Ha Tinh Steel is heard to have cut its domestic HRC prices for December/January shipment last week to large-volume buyers. The mill's discount is the equivalent of $10/t and applies to bookings of 10,000t and more, market participants say.
“They want to collect more orders as their focus is the local market,” a Vietnamese reroller observes.
Export market business for HRC is difficult and orders are low, a trader says.
Source:Kallanish
