Local Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) prices have bounced back during the past week, rising by a significant INR 1,400/mt ($21/mt) to INR 40,000/mt ($597/mt) ex-works, amid strong buying activity by dealers and large bookings by end-users, traders said on Tuesday, August 23.
“This has been one of the biggest gains over the past few years. Clearly, dealers are restocking and end-users are making large-volume bookings perceiving that the market has bottomed out,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“Most of the large mills have completed base price increases in the range of INR 500-1,000/mt ($8-15/mt), providing sufficient bullish sentiment in the market for market prices to surge,” the trader added.
The flurry of buying activity has also been spurred by a lot of market talk about local steel mills likely to make further flat product price hikes in September, buoyed by antidumping duties levied on imported CRC and hot rolled coil (HRC) from most major steel producing countries, market sources said.
The sources said that dealers are aggressively restocking anticipating higher demand from rising automobile sales and reports of a significant drawdown on inventories held by large automobile manufacturers who would be expected to replenish stocks as the correction of local prices has runs its course and as imports are down to a trickle.
$1 = INR 67.10