Asian import steel billet market weakened by high supply, low offers

The availability of significant volumes of lower-priced induction furnace (IF) steel billet in the Philippines import market has led to a cooling of interest in higher-priced blast furnace (BF) billet, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday July 2.

IF billet from Thailand was heard sold at $665 per tonne cfr Manila earlier this week, with an offer for Vietnam-origin material heard later at $663 per tonne cfr.
By Friday, sources said that IF billet from Malaysia of 5sp quality was available for as little as $655 per tonne cfr.
The high availability of IF billet in the export market, partly due to poor steel demand in key supplier countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and India, was appealing to Philippines buyers who had seen their local rebar prices decline in recent weeks, sources said.

Meanwhile, BF billet was...

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