VIETNAM STEEL SCRAP: Price flash crash dims buying interest

Offers for Japanese H2 were at $425-435 per tonne cfr southern Vietnam, down $30-40 per tonne week on week. Steel mills did not show any interest at this price.

The limited interest for heavy scrap was exacerbated by a major South Korean steel mill not purchasing any H2 or H1&H2 (50:50) scrap from Japan in its latest tender.

It had bid for H2 at ¥38,500-39,500 ($372-382) per tonne, but purchased only 60,000 tonnes of high-grade materials at ¥44,000 per tonne fob even though Japanese scrapyards had indicated willingness to sell 110,000 tonnes of scrap to the steelmaker at its bid price.

The final purchase included 11,000 tonnes of Shindachi scrap, 20,000 tonnes of HS and 13,000 tonnes of shredded scrap.

A total of 220,000 tonnes of scrap had been offered to the major South Korean steelmaker by Japanese scrapyards.

Major Japanese mini-mill Tokyo Steel had also cut its scrap purchase prices consecutively in two days.

It will cut scrap purchase prices by ¥2,000 per tonne at its Utsunomiya mill to ¥40,000 per tonne from January 23, after slashing prices across the board by ¥1,000-2,000 per tonne at all its steel works on January 22.

At least two cargoes of Hong Kong-origin H1&H2 (50:50), including a 3,000-tonne cargo, was sold at $422 per tonne cfr Vietnam, after being offered at $435-438 per tonne cfr Vietnam.

Russian A3 was offered at $457-460 per tonne cfr Vietnam, after taking into account export taxes imposed by the Russian government on ferrous scrap.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel scrap H2, Japan-origin import, cfr Vietnam was $425-435 per tonne on Friday, falling by $25 per tonne from $450-460 per tonne a week earlier.

Offers for bulk cargoes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) from the United States were at $450 per tonne cfr Vietnam.

Bids were at $400-410 per tonne cfr Vietnam by buyers.

Market sources estimated prices for deep-sea bulk cargoes to be at around $435-440 per tonne cfr Vietnam.

Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for deep-sea bulk cargoes of steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20), cfr Vietnam was $435-440 per tonne on Friday, down by $38-40 per tonne week on week from $473-480 per tonne.

Containerized cargoes were offered at $420 per tonne cfr Vietnam in the earlier part of the week.