Indian exporters of hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil have marginally lowered their offers by $5/mt during the past week to $670/mt FOB in response to the softening of ex-China offers, but this has not been enough to revive any market activity, traders said on Thursday, November 8.
“Lowering ex-India HDG offers was not enough to compete with steadily softening ex-China offers. I feel that the decision to lower ex-India HDG offers was largely notional as neither commercial exporters nor large exporting steel mills are interested in pushing volumes overseas, risking lower margins, when they can get better margins from local sales,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“Almost no transactions have been reported in the market for the last two weeks,” the trader added.
According to two other traders, traditional export destination like the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region is seeing a steady weakening of demand and, with local prices remaining stable, buyers are not interested in concluding overseas transactions.
The traders said that, with overall flat steel product prices softening across the Asian markets amid excess supplies, the near absence of outward shipments of ex-India HDG is expected to continue as Indian commercial exporters and large mills are unlikely to aggressively price their offers, particularly at a time when domestic prices have been consolidating.