Black Sea merchant pig iron prices continue to show more downside, market sourced told S&P Global Platts on Friday.
Platts weekly Black Sea pig iron price assessment stood on Friday at $255-$265/mt FOB Black Sea, indicating the mid-point of $260/mt, $15/mt down on week.
Turkish steelmakers were said to be particular bearish on pig iron prices on the back of strong pressure on the finished steel prices and anticipated corrections in scrap settlements.
A senior trader noted that the current basic pig iron prices were in the range of $250-$255/mt FOB Black Sea for Italy and the US markets but for Turkey should be much lower.
Another trader said the last confirmed deal he was aware of was inked a couple of weeks ago by the Ukrainian producer Donetskstal (DMZ) at $275/mt FOB Odessa, to the US destination.
This prices was not repeatable any more, he said. Another Ukrainian mill was ready to sell its pig iron allocation at $245-$255/mt FOB Sea of Azov but "nobody wanted to take it," the trader commented. He believed the Black Sea pig iron prices might fall further to $230/mt FOB, before bottoming out.
DMZ, a large CIS pig iron supplier, told Platts it was out of the market due to serious disruptions in the railway transport caused by strikes. The mill source noted that neither pellet deliveries nor pig iron shipments were possible.
"We have enough pellets for the next few days," the source said, adding that one of the two blast furnaces had already been stopped because of insufficient raw material supply.
