Hoa Phat Steel recorded a rise in finished steel sales amid a recovery in demand. In October, steel products sales increased by 13pc from October 2019 to 383,000mt. Steel billet sales were 133,000mt and finished steel 250,000mt.. Exports of steel products were at 62,000mt, 4.3 times higher than the prior October.
In the domestic market, Vietnam’s central region is being heavily battered by typhoons and floods since October. On the other hand, overall steel consumption in the North and the South continued to grow with recovering steel demand.
The largest share of domestic sales in October was in the Southern region with over 60,000mt steel sold, up 25pc from the prior year. Seasonal issues impacting production and transportation in October month led to slower growth in finished steel consumption compared to the previous month.
Hoa Phat steel continued to export a major portion of its semi-finished steel, especially billets to the markets such as Canada, Malaysia, Japan, Cambodia, and Ghana.
Jan-Oct exports surge on demand
In the Jan-Oct period, Hoa Phat steel’s production reached 4.6mn mt of crude steel almost doubling from the prior year period. The output of the square billet was 1.4mn mt. Over 70pc exports were to China.
Total steel sales reached nearly 4.14mn mt, of which construction steel finished products were over 2.7mn mt, rising 28.6pc from the prior period. The company recorded exports of finished steel at 435,000mt, more than 2 times higher than the same period prior year.
Hoa Phat’s HRC production to reach 340,000mt in November
In March, Hoa Phat’s Dung Quat Iron and Steel Manufacturing Complex started operations and commercial sales of HRC from the facility commenced this week. The company aims to supply 340,000mt HRC in November, up from 120,000mt in October. Also, the company is likely to reignite its No. 4 blast furnace in January.