The weekly Davis Index for CIS basic pig iron decreased by $9/mt to $272/mt fob Black Sea on Friday on new sales to China.
Chinese companies remained the main consumer for pig iron from the CIS region and could strike deals at lower prices. Negotiations with Ukrainian and Russian suppliers resulted in several deals in the range of $293-303/mt cfr China, while bookings were done at $325-330/mt cfr in the second half of March.
CIS pig iron exporters have accepted these lower prices in sales to China for now, as they had no better bids. However, they have stepped back and expect a price rebound due to a significant increase in ferrous scrap prices in some countries, especially Turkey.
A Ukrainian pig iron producer also sold a cargo to the USA recently to a distributor, but other details of the deal were not disclosed.
Italy is slowly recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with some steelmakers gradually resuming production. However, negotiations in the imported pig iron market are yet to begin. As a result, the weekly Davis Index for CIS pig iron in Italy is still based only on current fob prices and decreased by $7/mt to $298/mt cfr on Friday.