The past week has brought a mild rebound in India’s imported HRC trade, where several transactions for South Korean and Japanese coils were struck at levels below the prevailing domestic quotes.
SteelOrbis has learned that a deal for around 10,000 mt of ex-South Korea HRC was signed $520/mt CFR Chennai at the end of last week. Besides, according to sources, a few more deals are reported to have been signed at $500-505/mt CFR for ex-Japan HRC in India last week.
Meanwhile, offers for ex-China HRC have been reported at $465-470/mt CFR, but no deals have been heard so far, since, according to market insiders, no interest in Chinese materials has been seen among Indian buyers due to trade measures.
“The volumes for import HRC are much lower now due to trade restrictions, but still import prices are rather competitive as compared to local quotes. Also, Japanese suppliers are desperate with the US announcing 50 percent import duty,” an Indian trader told SteelOrbis.
This week, local Indian HRC trade prices have lost INR 200/mt ($2.3/mt) to INR 51,100/mt ($597/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 100/mt ($1/mt) to INR 52,700/mt ($615/mt) ex-Chennai in the south. At the same time, the sources said that most Tier I mills have decided to keep June base prices unchanged with at least one large mill reported to be confirming bookings at a discount of INR 500/mt ($5/mt) on the listed price.