Indian flat steel exports have remained quiet during the past week owing to festival holidays ahead and transaction activity has ebbed even though offers have softened, traders said on Monday, October 15.
“Merchant exporters and large steel mills have lowered their offers as buyers from South East Asian markets have been seeking benefits of depreciating rupee against the dollar,” a Mumbai based trader said.
“However, with a string of festival holidays ahead and with a section of merchant exporters to mark auspicious opening of accounting books are not pushing transactions aggressively,” he added.
However according to two other merchant exporters, the lowering of offers across flat products indicate that exporters are willing to adjust prices in keeping in weakening of local currency and shipment volumes are expected to improve sharply once market activity gets back to normal after the festivities ahead.
Market sources said that ex-India HRC offers have declined by $3/mt to $607 /mt FOB, but most of the transactions have been concluded were done by large steel mills like JSW Limited and JSPL, while merchant exporters were not active.
Although transaction volumes have ranged between 3.000-5.000 mt, market players expect this to steadily rise as there are healthy buyers’ enquiries from Vietnam and Indonesia.
Reports indicate that with Chinese steel mills keeping flat steel export offers almost unchanged during the past week, buyers in South East Asian markets are showing higher inclination to receiving offers for ex-India HRC, market sources added.
Ex-India CRC offers were down $10/mt to $680/mt FOB, with reports of some transaction being concluded at an additional discount of around $10/mt by few large steel mills to push volumes in order to manage inventories as these mills are operating at close to full capacity utilization and slowdown in stock movements in local markets, traders said.
Ex-India hot rolled plate offers
According to traders, ex-India plate offer continued to remain unchanged for the second consecutive week at $660/mt FOB, as no exportable volumes have been reportedly available with large steel mills.