Indian flat steel export shipments have come to a virtual standstill with exporters maintaining offers unchanged during the past week and buyers in key markets not responding with any kind of significant booking volumes, traders said on Monday, June 10.
“By maintaining export offers unchanged, Indian commercial exporters and large steel mills are clearly losing pricing leverage at a time when ex-China offers are still on a steady decline. Little wonder that overseas buyers are not responding to Indian offers,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“Trading of only limited volumes to neighboring countries has been reported during the past week. Local mills are only focused on increasing domestic base prices and have almost pulled out of the export market, as they are unwilling to aggressively price offers to push volumes overseas,” the trader added.
Ex-India HRC offers
Ex-India hot rolled coil offers have remained stable during the past week at $530/mt FOB, according to market sources.
The sources said that, while large export steel mills are largely absent, a few commercial exporters reported only limited trades of an aggregate volume of 4,000-5,000 mt to buyers from neighboring markets like Nepal.
Ex-India CRC offers
Ex-Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) offers are unchanged week on week at $545/mt FOB, according to market sources, who added that no significant bookings were reported by either commercial exporters or large steel mills.
Ex-India plate offers
Ex-India plates offer have been kept unchanged during the past week at $575/mt FOB, according to market sources, but no transactions have been reported by either traders or large steel mills.