Buyers in wait-and-see mode in local Indian HRC market

Local Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) prices have remained unchanged during the past week at around INR 40,500/mt ($660/mt) ex-works in an inactive market, with buyers awaiting price adjustments by steel mills, local traders said on Monday, October 7.
 
"There has been very little trading activity in view of the spate of festival holidays. With several more holidays coming up, market activity is expected to remain dull until the end of the month," a Mumbai-based trader said.
 
"At the same time, buyers are on wait-and-watch mode with steel mills starting to make price adjustments, and volumes will continue to remain negligible until prices settle down," he added.
 
Market sources said that most steel mills have completed price adjustments for long products since the start of the current month, but price trends for flat steel products including HRC are showing some divergence leading to a certain amount of confusion in the market.
 
According to sources, JSW Steel has lowered its prices of HRC by about INR 750/mt ($12/mt), while Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) has made a downward adjustment of INR 1,000/mt ($16/mt) across all products. However, other producers like Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Tata Steel, while lowering prices of long steel products, have not announced any changes in their HRC prices, leading to confusion in the market over the short-term trends of flat product prices, the sources added.
 
Explaining local steel mills' caution over adjusting their prices of flat products, the sources said that imports of Chinese flat products have already risen sharply and ex-China long products are INR 6,000/mt ($97/mt) cheaper than local offers, forcing Indian steel mills to take an early call on long products. However, in contrast, HRC import pressures have yet to peak and volumes are comparatively smaller, even even though ex-China HRC offers have been at around $450-460/mt FOB, the sources said.
 
The market is not ruling out local mills announcing HRC price cuts later in the current month once business activity returns to normal with the end of the festival season, and buyers are expected to remain on the sidelines until then.