Indian hot dip galvanized (HDG) export offers have remained stable at $750/mt FOB during the past week, with exports transactions coming to a virtual standstill, traders said on Thursday, January 11.
“Indian HDG exporters are caught in a bind. Having effected a significant increase in offers of $30/mt early in the month to offset input cost increases, they have lost all pricing power to push volumes overseas,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“They have been so out-priced in most markets overseas that even increase in local US HDG prices have kept US buyers away from making any bookings in India. Even at higher US HDG price levels, US buyers do not find Indian offers attractive enough,” the trader added.
Sources said that, in the absence of any US buyers being active in the Indian market, most commercial exporters are not even submitting offers, while large exporting steel mills merely completed deliveries against December transactions during the past week.
The sources said that the doldrums in the Indian HDG export market is also aggravated by the near absence of shipment opportunities to the Gulf region, as buyers in the latter market have been staying away from concluding transactions following the imposition of five percent VAT by many countries in the Gulf.