Import prices for steel billet in Southeast Asia and slab in the wider region encompassing East Asia continued to strengthen over the past week amid fewer offers and thin trading.
BilletMetal Bulletin's assessment of import prices for billet in Southeast Asia was $565-575 per tonne cfr for the week ended Monday March 12, narrowing upward by $5 per tonne from $560-575 per tonne cfr a week earlier.Transactions involving cargoes from the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East were heard to have been concluded at $570-575 per tonne cfr to the Philippines. An order for China-origin billet was heard to have been placed at $565 per tonne cfr Manila.Indonesian buyers still did not make any bookings much like a week earlier because they found the offer prices too high for them to accept amid a weak domestic market for finished steel products, sources said."We're just waiting for prices to come down," a major Indonesian billet re-roller source said. Buyers in the country indicated their interest at around...