Taiwan’s Feng Hsin Iron & Steel has announced to cut domestic rebar prices by TWD 500 per tonne this week. Its rebar price is now about TWD 20,300 per tonne.
 
 Feng Hsin kept section and scrap prices unchanged this week. Price of section is in a range of TWD 22,000 to TWD 22,200 per tonne. Actual deal price is in a range of TWD 21,500 to TWD 21,700 per tonne.
 
 Actually, Feng Hsin had dropped the scrap price TWD 600 per tonne on October 18th 2008. Price of scrap is in a range of TWD 4,100 to TWD 4,700 per tonne so far. Although the company has been cutting production against slower demand in the past couple of months, the market remained weak.

Japan’s Itochu and a group of Asian steelmakers have agreed to buy a 40 per cent stake in Nacional Minerios (Namisa), a Brazilian iron ore producer owned by steel company Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, for $3.12bn.

Several deals in the mining and metals industries have been scuppered in recent weeks by volatile market conditions and the darkening outlook for the world economy. Yesterday, Kazakhmys, the UK-listed Kazakh copper producer, ended talks with Metalloinvest, the Russian iron ore and steel group. Kazakhmys and Metalloinvest could have created a $40bn metals group, on an estimate made when the two first began to hold early-stage talks in mid-July. Since then, Kazakhmys’s shares have fallen dramatically and valuations have become so difficult that a deal became impossible, said industry sources.

Thai steel firm G Steel PCL GSTE.BK said on Monday that Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co planned to acquire a stake in it.

Details of the share sale, including the price and what percentage Mitsui would own, were expected after the approval of the boards of both firms, a G Steel executive, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Mitsui, Japan’s biggest global steel trader, would benefit from using the Thai partner as a production base for the region while G Steel could secure overseas expansion opportunities.

“It’s a win-win opportunity for both sides in terms of marketing and supply chain,” the executive said.

Previously several newspapers had reported that the Thai steel coil maker was in talks to sell a stake to ArcelorMittal  group. G Steel denied those reports.

At 0519 GMT, G Steel shares were unchanged at 1.24 baht while the broader market .SETI was down 3.45 percent amid global credit market jitters.

 Indonesia’s largest steelmaker PT Krakatau Steel is preparing for an initial public offering, IPO, to help fund its $1.5 billion expansion. Below are the key facts and figures for Krakatau Steel.

- Production: Krakatau Steel produced 2.38 million tonnes of steel products last year, including hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, billet, wire rod, and steel bars.

- Financial highlights: It swung to a net profit of 314 billion rupiah in 2007, from a loss of 135 billion rupiah in 2006, while revenue rose nearly 28 percent to 14.84 trillion rupiah.

- Market: More than 87 percent of its production is sold to the local market, mainly to construction companies, state shipyard PT PAL, and to gas stove and gas cylinder producers. The remainder is exported to Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Spain.

- Expansion: Krakatau plans to increase production capacity to 5 million tonnes, from 2.5 million tonnes currently, through the following projects.