Venezuela is starting to export ferrous scrap and other steel product inventories as the country's steelmakers are offline with no timetable on when they might resume operations, sources said Monday.
In the past couple of weeks, according to industry sources and port agency data, three vessels have berthed to load steel products and ferrous scrap -- the BBC California, Bar and the Onego Maas.
The Onego Maas reached the Sidor port to load steel and iron materials on December 8, according to cFlow, S&P Global Platts trade flow software.
The Bar loaded around 7,590 mt of steel products at the end of November and headed to the port of Louisiana, in the US.
The BBC California was reported to have loaded flat steel products from Sidor. It left Venezuelan waters December 6. A final destination has yet to be declared.
According to market sources, a vessel loaded around 35,000 mt of ferrous scrap in Venezuela and is headed for Vitoria, Brazil.
The last confirmed steel exports from Venezuela were in the second quarter of 2017. Complejo Siderurgico Nacional carried out the exports, and they included profiles, beams and angles. Neither the volume or destination were disclosed.
Venezuela's only flat steel producer, and largest steelmaker in the country, Sidor, is almost entirely offline, with only a few areas operating at minimum levels.
CSN's steelmaking facilities -- Casima and Barquisimeto -- have been offline since the beginning of Q2 2017. Several attempts to resume operations have been made since then, but without success.
