Prices in Southeast Asia's steel billet market remained stable on Friday November 1, with a closing arbitrage window between international prices and domestic Chinese prices, sources told Fastmarkets.
Market participants said buyers in Southeast Asia were not willing to pay higher prices because they did not need materials urgently and were not being outbid by Chinese importers in the spot market.Fastmarkets' daily price assessment for steel billet domestic, exw Tangshan, northern China, was 3,350 yuan ($476) per tonne on November 1, down 10 yuan per tonne from a week earlier.Chinese buyers were willing to pay higher prices and book larger quantities of billet in the first two weeks of October, which drove up prices in Southeast Asia.Billet from India and Russia were on offer at $405-410 per tonne cfr Indonesia and the Philippines while Malaysian billet...