Ex-India hot rolled coil (HRC) prices have remained relatively stable, but market participants claimed this to be “notional” as mills were largely holding back from submitting offers owing to uncertain price trends in most key destinations and market activity has been kept barely alive by stray deals of “emergency buying” by a few Europe-based distributors.
Specifically, ex-India HRC prices have largely settled at $570-615/mt FOB, versus $565-615/mt FOB last week. According to sources, ex-India HRC is less available at the moment due to JSW Steel’s production problem, a maintenance shutdown in particular, due to which they lost tonnages. “When they [JSW] come back for end-of-September shipment, I guess they will try Europe first,” a market insider told SteelOrbis.
“If you hear ex-India offers, it is mainly traders’ idea price now. Unless it is too high-priced and for Europe,” another source said.
According to the sources, EU tariff quotas are nearly exhausted, and the modest-volumes deals were from distributors needing to meet emergency supplies as some mills in Europe are starting maintenance shutdowns during the upcoming holiday season, leading to some tightening in local supplies.
At the same time, buying activity in the Gulf region has touched a low ebb with distributors fully stocked and low industrial demand. As a result of the steady widening of the bid-offer gap, local mills were heard to be refraining from submitting new offers and instead waiting for a more definite price trend to emerge and, in the meantime, they are reported to be reducing export allocations by 15-25 percent for the July-September quarter.
At least two in trade circles claimed that demand in Asian destinations like Vietnam was “positive” but workable pricing is elusive for Indian mills with buyers seeking valuations of around $590/mt on CFR basis.