Indian export offers for hot dip galvanized (HDG) have remained unchanged during the past week at $700-710/mt FOB, with exporters awaiting definite signals from the US domestic market before considering another increase in offers, traders said on Thursday, January 12.
“There are expectations that US steel mills will continue to push up prices as business activity picks up after the New Year holiday. Indian exporters are waiting to see the size of the US steel price rise before revising their HDG export offers,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“Indian HDG exporters are considering the third upward revision in offers since early December to offset local input cost increases. But at the same time they prefer to wait and not risk trade volumes as current transaction volumes have remained muted,” the trader added.
According to two other traders, Indian exporters are also not too sure of the impact on the US market of the recently launched trade cases against Chinese HDG in the European Union.
They said that any adverse verdict in the EU against Chinese HDG could reinforce the stated policy of the incoming US administration to hasten the imposition of tariff barriers on steel imports into the US.
These developments could hamper Indian exporters’ move to increase HDG export offers and hence the wait-and-see policy among Indian exporters, the two traders stated.