The long-awaited start of Malaysian HRC sales with the launch of the production line at Eastern Steel is finally happening, with the mill heard to have already sold trial lots in the domestic market. This will be the first HRC producer in Malaysia, but in general market sources do not expect a strong impact from the increased HRC supply to the global market, SteelOrbis learned from the market this week.
Eastern Steel had a crude steel capacity of 700,000 mt per year, which was increased to 2.7 million mt by the end of 2023 with the installation of a second 1,380m3 blast furnace. Market sources were waiting for the launch of HRC sales from the new HR line with a total capacity of 2 million mt in the first half of 2024, but it was postponed a few times as the company saw more opportunities in sales of slabs and billet, while the situation in the HRC market was complicated by rising exports from China. "We will try to survive next year, but the market [globally] will still be dominated by Chinese HRC," a market source said.
A few market sources have confirmed that Eastern Steel has launched trial production of HRC in the current month of November, with a few small lots sold in the local market. "They may start offering to the export market in December, but it will take months [for buyers] to check the quality and [for the mill] to solve technical issues," a large China-based trader said. "There have been ready to sell HRC for some time, but I am not sure if the exact starting date for export sales will be this year," another large trader said, adding that another ASEAN producer, Indonesia-based Dexin steel, has been in the market since July and still it has no firm supply of HRC and its sales network has been experiencing production and quality difficulties.
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