Vietnam : Formosa Ha Tinh Corp. Sharply Cuts HRC Offer for November Shipments

Vietnam’s domestic steel producer - Formosa Ha Tinh has announced a steep cut of around USD 51/MT in its offers for Nov shipments.

According to sources, revised offers for HRC (SAE 1006 skin pass) is assessed around at USD 480/MT CIF Ho Chi Minh city against last month’s offer which was at USD 531/MT CIF basis.

Meanwhile, offers for HRC of (non-skin pass) stood at USD 470/MT, CIF basis. Last month the company was offering the same grade at USD 526/MT CIF basis.

Formosa declined its HRC offers due to following reasons:

1.Imported HRC offers to Vietnam from India remain competitive- Major Indian steelmakers in order to offload surplus inventories have further lowered their export offers for Asian markets owing to weakening sentiments in domestic market.Currently, major Indian steelmakers are offering imported HRC to Vietnam at around USD 455-460/MT CFR Vietnam for Oct shipments. Indian HRC export offers to Vietnam have come down by USD 20/MT in a month's time.

2.Imported HRC offers from China continue to fall- Imported HRC offers to Vietnam from China were slashed by around USD 42-45/MT M-o-M basis amid lower bids and limited buying from end users based in Vietnam as they are preferring Indian origin HRC cargoes amid low priced imports compared to China.

As per data maintained with SteelMint, imported HRC offers from China stands around USD 460-462/MT CFR basis in the beginning of Sep’19 which was USD 505/MT CFR basis in the beginning of Aug’19.

3. Vietnam buyers continue to eye for lower HRC offers- The buyers based in Vietnam having access to cheaper alternatives continue to eye for lower HRC offers from various exporting nations owing to downturn in global steel prices.