Indian exporters of hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil have maintained their offers at $730/mt FOB during the past week, but despite overall low activity, merchant exporters were able to push modest volumes to Gulf markets offering discounts ranging at $10-15/mt, traders said on Thursday, August 2.
“Overall trading activity has continued to be characterized with weakness as large exporting steel mills have stayed away from any overseas transactions as they have been getting good price levels from their domestic markets,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“HDG prices in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regions were seen to be weakening amid overall low demand for flat steel products. But Indian merchant exporters were able to conclude modest volume transactions back of the discounts on offer,” the trader added.
According to market sources, the discounting by merchant exporters worked in pushing volumes overseas largely owing to stable trend of HDG offers from China during the week.
The steady weakening of the Indian rupee hovering below the INR 68 to a dollar mark also partially compensated the erosion in margins resulting from the discounts offered by Indian HDG exporters to the GCC, the sources added.