Ex-India hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil prices have remained stable over the past week and trade activity has fallen almost completely silent, amid a combination of year-end considerations, negligible export volume availability from mills and the holidays ahead in the Middle East, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Thursday, March 27.
Sources said that HDG prices (Z120) is stable at $700-720/mt FOB but sellers either have had too little export allocation available or have not been submitting offers to avoid deals at lower prices and instead are awaiting a new trend in the new fiscal year starting on April 1.
They said the holidays in the Middle East also halted stray deals that had been keeping trade activity just about ticking over in the earlier week.
“Even though the market is silent, there are positive signals emerging from Europe led by the revival of demand seen in Germany and higher local prices in the region. The same is the trend in Italy. Mills are reportedly asking for higher prices for May-June deliveries. Our assessment is that this will trigger distributors to start looking for new supply options,” an affiliate of Tata Steel Limited told SteelOrbis.
“While the outlook for ex-India HDG is looking good, there are uncertainties regarding trade dynamics that can be a headwind to sales by Indian mills. The question is how much of surplus supply will move into Europe following the higher tariffs in the US. There are worries that a heavy volume can get diverted to the EU and put renewed pressures on HDG prices. These are factors that Indian mills will need to consider while fixing export allocations for the next quarter (April-June),” he added.
