Vietnam’s Hoa Phat Dung Quat’s list prices for its domestic hot rolled coil sales due for delivery in January are slightly lower in dollar terms, Kallanish notes.

The quotes for non-skin passed SAE1006 or SS400 grade HRC have been set at the equivalent of $567/tonne cfr southern Vietnam, a drop of $2.5/t from last month. In VND terms, the latest price of VND 14,020/kg is VND 70/kg higher and this is due to the depreciation of the VND against the US dollar.

Hoa Phat’s latest price is about the same level as Vietnam’s other strip producer, Formosa Ha Tinh. The latter was forced to discount its HRC prices on 24 October.

“Demand is slow,” a southern Vietnam reroller says. Some customers were hoping that Hoa Phat would lower its prices to as low as $530/t, he says. “We are now not making profit in our sales,” he says. Export sales are slow but they are still better than the domestic market, he adds. He hopes that the market will improve in the first half of next year.

Domestic demand is still lukewarm and not rising, a Ho Chi Minh city trader says. “I don’t think that Hoa Phat can get its 100% sales allocation at this price level,” he says. FHS is heard in the market to have fully sold out after it reduced its domestic HRC prices to the equivalent of around $570/t cif. The established mill's HRC is popular in Vietnam, the trader says.