Ex-India hot rolled coil (HRC) prices have been kept mostly stable by most large mills, though a slight upward correction has been seen this week, mainly given the absence of new deals with discounts. At the same time, according to sources, most mills have been suspending submission of offers, with more focus on local sales yielding better margins.
Ex-India HRC prices have “notionally kept unchanged” with offers showing minimal changes, reaching $560-600/mt FOB, against $550-600/mt FOB last week. “The lower end of the range has been increased slightly since, while many mills just stopped submitting offers, others who are offering prefer to refrain from discounted sales,” a market insider said.
“With the mills officially halting export sales, there were a lot of market speculations on unconfirmed small-volume deals at below $540/mt FOB, but all agree that the prices were ‘unrealistically low’ which would have entailed negative margins,” another source told SteelOrbis.
At the same time, most market insiders have remained rather pessimistic in terms of future market sentiments. “We see oversupply across the globe with higher interest rates, inflation, etc. Hence, it is unlikely that prices will move up in the next few months and even in July when most Indian mills will finish with annual maintenance works and will all be producing at full capacity, as it will again provoke excess supply followed by import arrivals,” an Indian trader told SteelOrbis.
“Our own assessment is that, despite some mills in Europe attempting to increase prices, there is strong resistance from market intermediaries and users, while demand in the Middle East remains muted,” a source at Tata Steel Limited said.
