Indian flat steel product exports market activity continued to remain at a low ebb with very limited volumes contracted during the past week with only few low volume transactions reported by few steel mills to neighboring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh for hot rolled coils (HRC), traders said on Monday, November 19.
“Merchant exporter were largely out of the market during the past week, Indian export offers though marginally lowered for cold rolled coils (CRC) and plates, were unable to compete in traditional southeast Asian markets like Vietnam and Malaysia as cuts in ex-China flat steel products have been sharper,” a Mumbai based trader said.
“Exporters have been restricted in aggressively pricing their offers by the Indian currency which has been steadily appreciating over the past week and now at INR 71.90 a dollar, and a two month high, does not ensure any additional incentive to push shipments overseas,” he added.
Large Indian steel mills maintained HRC export offers during the past week at $580/mt FOB, while merchant exporters were largely inactive.
According to market sources only a few small volume transactions ranging around 1000 mt per contract were concluded by the mills for shipments to Nepal and Bangladesh.
The sources said that even though domestic steel mills are seeing their inventories rising they are not willing to sacrifice margins to push volumes through further cuts in export offers.
According to market sources, ex-Indian CRC offers were lowered during the past week by $10/mt at $590/mt FOB but buyers did not respond, believing that the cuts in offers not attractive enough for them to conclude transactions particularly compared to ex-China offers to Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Ex-India Plates offers
Ex-India offers for steel plates were lowered by $10/mt during the past week at $620/mt but no export transactions were reported during the past week, according to market source.