Iranian export prices for slab, billet soften amid looming sanctions Iranian export slab prices fell slightly in the week ended Wednesday

Iranian export prices for slab, billet soften amid looming sanctions
Iranian export slab prices fell slightly in the week ended Wednesday
May 30, with customers achieving lower prices in recent bookings.
Metal Bulletin’s weekly price assessment for Iranian slab exports
dropped by $5 per tonne week on week on May 30, to $505-510 per
tonne fob.
A cargo of Iranian slab for shipment in July was reported to have
been booked by customers in Southeast Asia within that price range.
Recent export slab offers from Iranian mills were heard at $510
per tonne fob.
But customers from Southeast Asia have voiced concerns about
the future of semi-finished steel imports from Iran, in view of the
expectation of renewed United States trading sanctions on the
Middle Eastern country.
The US withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear
power industry on May 8, and said that it would reimpose its trading
sanctions against the country within 90 days.
Customers in Southeast Asia expressed their willingness to
continue to trade with the country, considering that Iranian prices
are traditionally $10-20 per tonne lower than for materials of other
origins.
“We’ve been buying Iranian material using currencies other than
the US dollar and we do not have any connections with the US,” a
source in Indonesia said, noting that he plans to continue to buy
from Iran.
Another source noted, however, that it is not banking, but
shipping issues that may become a hurdle to trade with Iran since large global shipping companies have already started to fold
operations in the country. The US provided shipping companies 120
days to finalize operations with Iran.
“I do not think any international shipping company will be able to
conduct business with Iran if sanctions are implemented to their full
extent,” Soren Skou, the chief executive of world’s largest shipping
company, Maersk, was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.
For steel billet, Metal Bulletin’s assessment of export prices for
Iranian product narrowed by $5 per tonne on the upper end on the
week, to $500-510 per tonne fob.
The few offers heard from Iranian mills this week for
July-shipment billet fell in the range of $510-515 per tonne fob. But
no bookings were heard within market participants’ estimate of
workable prices at the lower range of $500-505 per tonne fob.
VLADA NOVOKRESHCHENOVA