Billet importers in Manila were not active last week because of bearish sentiment, Kallanish notes. While offers are currently unchanged, the slowdown in the Chinese domestic market has triggered hopes that regional billet offer prices will fall soon.

Offers for billet imports are holding at $400-405/tonne cfr Manila. These include offers for Russian billet as well as induction furnace billet from Vietnam, Malaysia and India. A regional trader reports that he received a higher offer on Friday at $410/t cfr Manila for Vietnamese induction furnace billet. He thinks the supplier hiked its offer after getting buyers’ acceptance at $400/t cfr.

Sentiment has weakened and the market is quiet, says an importer. “No one is biting” the current offers of $400/t cfr Manila, he adds. After the purchase of 24,000 tonnes of Russian 3sp billet at $400/t cfr Manila, which was finalised on 22 June, another order closed soon after at $398/t cfr, a Manila trader says. He estimates the order was for 10,000t. Subsequently, however, offers for imports rose to $400/t cfr and higher, he adds.

Buyers are now bearish, a Manila trader said on Friday. A buyer told him he thinks prices will fall in a month’s time amid the slowdown in China as well as the poor global economic outlook. “Most Philippine buyers are expecting prices to fall to $390-395/t cfr levels,” a Singapore trader says.

On Friday, Kallanish lowered its 5sp/ps or Q275 120/125/130mm square billet assessment to $398-400/t cfr Manila, down $1 on-week.