Bangladeshi steelmakers have showed only limited interest in buying imports of steel scrap over the last week amid a continuing strict lockdown in the country, sources said on Thursday August 5.
The country's strict Covid-19 lockdown was extended until Tuesday August 10, government officials announced on August 3. A feature of this latest lockdown is that most heavy industry such as steel production has been banned, but with some exceptions.
"The two companies which own electric-arc furnaces [EAFs] in Bangladesh lobbied to stay open because they said they could not run their oxygen plants if they closed," a steel scrap exporter said.
"These mills are operating at a lower capacity utilization rate, but they are operating nonetheless," he said, adding that almost all induction furnace (IF) mills in the country, which do not have their own oxygen supplies, have stopped production.
Any mills that are producing are just building up steel inventories because retail markets remain closed, putting a halt on steel trading in the country, sources said.