China, ASEAN billet prices locked in tug-of-war

The spike in Chinese billet prices last week caused a pause in trading as ASEAN buyers withdrew from the market, Kallanish notes.

In China, prevailing offers of 3sp 150mm billet from eastern Chinese mills stood at around $435/t fob last Friday, up by $4/t week-on-week when the most traded January 2026 rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange went up by CNY 49/t ($6.9/t). Offers were also at $435/t fob on 27 October.

However, no export transactions were heard in Southeast Asia throughout last week. Bids from Vietnamese buyers and Manila buyers were much lower, at the equivalent of around $425/t fob for 3sp billet.

During the week through 24 October, 50,000t of 3sp 150mm billets were sold to Middle East customers at around $430/t fob, source from a mill in eastern China said.

Indonesian mill Dexin Steel's offer for 3sp 150mm billet stood at $440/t last Friday, up $5/t on-week, but a decrease of $3/t compared to the price quoted from Tuesday to Thursday last week.

Offers for 5sp 150mm billet were prevailing at around $450/t cfr Manila and around $453-456/t cfr Jakarta at the end of last week. This compared with offers at $445/t cfr Manila and $448/t cfr Jakarta on 24 October. In Thailand, offers for 3sp 150mm billet were prevailing at $450/t cif compared to $442-445/t cif on 24 October. "There are no bids so far," a Thai trader said last Friday. 5sp billet enjoys a $5/t premium over 3sp billet.

“Customers are still looking at $440 levels, if at all,” a Manila trader says. A previous booking for Chinese 5sp billet transacted at $438/t cfr in mid-October. Kallanish assessed 5sp/ps or Q275 120/125/130mm square billet on Friday at $445-450/t cfr Manila, unchanged on-week.

Domestic demand for rebar remains weak in Indonesia, market sources in Jakarta say. A Jakarta trader does not see any increase in billet buying enquiries. "But the good news is that local scrap prices are going up, so maybe customers can consider higher billet prices in the future," he says. A suspension in new scrap import licences could lead to scrap shortages when existing scrap licences expire year-end or in early 2026, he says. 

Indonesia's Ministry of Environment temporarily suspended the issuance of licenses for the import of scrap in a 20 October notice. Radioactive material Caesium 137 was detected in steel slag from the smelting operations of several companies operating in Banten, West Java (see Kallanish passim).

Source:Kallanish