Indian local hot rolled coil (HRC) prices are forecast to go up by another INR 2,000-3,000/mt ($27-40/mt) as steel mills are expected to resort to a second base price hike in April, SteelOrbis has learned from reports of financial advisory firms on Tuesday, April 13.
Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities said that the firm expected a second round of price increase to be announced by domestic steel mills at around $27-40/mt on base prices.
CARE Ratings in a report said that steel mills will continue to increase base price in April and take price of HRC to the highest levels since 2008.
Motilal Oswal in its report said that continued rise in demand and tight supplies along with production cuts in China will continue to push up steel prices.
It said that domestic HRC prices are still at a discount of INR 9,000/mt ($120/mt) over ex-South Korean imports providing sufficient headroom for local producers to keep increasing local prices, particularly since ex-China import competition is receding in view of production cuts by Chinese steel mills.
The CARE report said that the new rally in steel prices will significantly hit infrastructure and automobile industries with construction and real estate accounting for about 55-60 percent of total steel consumption followed by automobile at 19 percent.
It might be noted that local integrated steel mills increased domestic HRC base price last week by INR 4,500-5,000/mt ($60-67/mt).
$1= INR 75.10