The Saudi Arabian billet market is observing a slight improvement, thanks to demand from United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain, and slightly increased rebar prices in the domestic market.

However, merchant billet producers were waiting until the end of Wednesday for the benchmark mill's scrap buying price announcement, which will give direction to the billet market; however, this did not come. Buyers, therefore, did not receive quotes to their billet enquiries, Kallanish notes.

This week in the kingdom, induction furnace-route 130mm 3/4sp billet transacted at SAR 2,090-2,125/tonne ($557-566) ex-works across the country. A re-roller in UAE booked a 5,000-tonne cargo of 130mm 3sp grade billet at $577/t ex-works, meaning $595/t delivered UAE, for prompt shipment.

In Dammam, HMS 80:20 grade scrap was available at the beginning of the week at SAR 1,620/t but sellers have stopped sales until new prices surface.

Tier-three mills are prepared to increase their rebar prices by SAR 50/t after the benchmark mill removed its project discount of SAR 100/t offered on rebar prices for quantities above certain quota limits. Next week, local induction furnace billet prices are expected to improve SAR 25-40/t on-week to SAR 2,115-2,150/t ex-works, if scrap prices remain unchanged. 

At present, billet prices in Saudi Arabia are the most competitive in the Gulf Cooperation Council. They compare with electric arc furnace-route billet from Bahrain at $593-594/t ex-works, induction furnace-route billet from UAE at $595-602/t ex-works, and EAF-route billet from Oman at $600-615/t ex-works. Even Iranian billet offers in UAE are heard at $600-605/t delivered to buyer’s yard.

Saudi merchant billet and rebar producers are heard eyeing sales in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE export markets at very competitive prices.