Prices in Southeast Asia's steel billet market were given a boost during the week to Friday November 15 due to limited cargoes available in the spot market after Chinese buyers resumed billet imports.
At least 140,000 tonnes of billet from various origins including India, Iran, Malaysia and Vietnam have been booked at $405-415 per tonne cfr China over the past week, sources told Fastmarkets.A trader in Jiangsu province said that billet prices there were at 3,590-3,600 yuan ($512-514) per tonne ex-works on Friday November 15.This indicates a price spread of $37-46 per tonne after the 13% value-added tax and 2% import duty to sell the cargoes into the domestic market are taken into account.The arbitrage window between international and domestic Chinese prices widened during the week after Chinese rebar prices rose on a supply bottleneck caused by transport restrictions imposed for the China International Import Expo. Trading activity was also spurred by a report from the...