Ex-India billet prices were kept unchanged over the past week as optimism waned and sellers were deferring any attempt to push up prices in view of slump in business activity in the Middle East and fresh negative sentiments across Asian region, while buyers held back trades expecting a new downtrend to emerge, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, June 28.
Ex-India billet offer prices were stable at $510-530/mt FOB, but no significant trades were reported with government mills taking a pause.
Sources said that while activity in the Middle East slowed down owing to holidays, sentiments among buyers in Asia turned slightly negative indicating that tentative signs of a reversal of downtrend were premature and local sellers held back pushing up price to avoid buyers’ resistance.
“Export market is on a delicate balance. Sellers expectations of higher prices have been elusive so far. Buyers’ expectations of a fall have been belied. Going forward the market can go either direction forcing both buyers and sellers on wait and watch mode,” an official with a government mill said.
“There has been a resumption of ex-Russia offers in Asia. At the same time, some mills in Southeast Asia have increased prices slightly. Indian mills are awaiting for more definitive cues before submitting fresh offers. But it is clear they are not going to rush to lower current prices,” he said.
But other market intermediaries said that as downtrend in local merchant sales prices in India gained momentum, it will have supply side impact on ex-India prices too.
In the local market, billet trade price slumped INR 800/mt ($10/mt) to INR 44,900/mt ($548/mt) ex-Mumbai and down INR 300/mt ($4/mt) to INR 43,250/mt ($527/mt) ex-Raipur on sustained fall in demand from secondary mills as the rebar market weakened steadily.
$1= INR 82.00