Polish mills offered rebar this week at 2,700 zloty ($689) per tonne CPT, Fastmarkets understands. This was the price that most local mills have been targeting since the end of April.
Sources told Fastmarkets that, for bigger volumes, small discounts of 20-30 zloty per tonne were possible. But for a few hundred tonnes, mills would keep the price at 2,700 zloty per tonne CPT.
Consequently, market participants estimated the tradeable market price in the range of 2,670-2,700 zloty per tonne CPT.
Based on the current offers and market sources’ estimations, Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, cpt Poland, was 2,670-2,700 zloty per tonne on Friday, up by 20 zloty per tonne from 2,650-2,680 zloty per tonne on May 10.
In the secondary market, lower prices were heard, in the range of 2,650-2,670 zloty per tonne CPT and even at 2,600 zloty per tonne CPT.
“In April, Polish mills produced rebar at lower prices, and now this cheap material is in the secondary market,” a distributor source told Fastmarkets.
The same source added that the mills had sold good volumes at last month’s lower prices, and now they could keep prices comparatively high.
A second distributor source told Fastmarkets that the price increase on Polish rebar was supported by the slight improvement in demand from the construction sector, the main consumer of long steel products.
“I think the residential construction subsector is keeping rebar prices up,” the source said, adding that some delayed residential projects had moved forward in the second quarter of the year.
The residential construction subsector in Poland will be also supported by the continuation of the government’s program granting low-interest rate loans to first-time home buyers. The details of the new program have yet to be finalized, so its effects will only be seen in the third and the fourth quarters of the year, according to the second distributor source.
The source added that there were still only a few significant infrastructure projects, and any improvement in this field was expected only at the end of the year.
In any case, the Polish zloty remained comparatively strong, making rebar import offers more attractive to the local market.
On May 17, €1 was trading for 4.26 Polish zloty. In comparison, one month before, €1 was trading for 4.34 Polish zloty. And on May 17, 2023, €1 was trading for 4.49 zloty.
It was rumored that a sizeable cargo of rebar was booked from Germany to Poland at €610 ($663) per tonne CPT. The rumored price was €16-19 per tonne lower compared with the price buyers could eventually achieve from Polish mills for large volumes.
This information was not confirmed by the market, however.
Published by: Darina Kahramanova