Chinese steelmakers are importing billet because of the reduction in domestic supplies caused by China's environmental restrictions on blast furnace production.
Billet from Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Russia and Malaysia has been sold into China, market sources said, due to open arbitrage window between domestic and international prices."About 200,000-300,000 tonnes of billet from the Middle East will make landfall in China this month," a Chinese trader told Fastmarkets on Friday July 12.The cargoes were sold at $440-450 cfr China, and were fixed by at least one major Chinese trading company, market sources...