Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) exporters maintained aggression in pushing up prices towards the $1,000/mt FOB mark over the past week, reacting to slowdown in local demand. The major focus of sellers was on the Asia market amid fall in trades in the EU region with exhaustion of export quota and sellers expecting demand revival in more traditional Southeast Asian market soon, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles.
Sources said that in view of ex-China HRC offers coming with full risk of possible export tax rebate falling on buyers, Indian sellers were at an advantage of pushing through offer-to-sale even at higher prices.
Ex-India HRC tradable prices have reached $860-960/mt FOB. They are $10/mt higher on average compared to a week ago, but the upper end of the range corresponds to potential sales prices to the EU, though no deals have been reported at this destination.
“Ex-India HRC realizations are up, but aggregate volumes are down with the EU market almost fully exhausted. Higher volumes is flowing to Southeast Asia and Gulf region. We hear that ex-China HRC offers are up $80-90/mt. But these higher prices are coming with higher risk of export rebate withdrawal which is fully at the buyer, putting Indian offers at an advantage,” sources in an Indian mill said.
Over the past week a contract for 30,000 mt of Indian coils was signed at $900/mt CFR Vietnam, which corresponds to $860/mt on FOB basis or so.
Sources said that an Odisha based integrated steel mill reported a trade of small volume trade at around $870/mt FOB.
At the moment most offers from India to Vietnam are at $940-950/mt CFR or $900-910/mt FOB. “Once sales from Formosa will be over in the next couple of days, then these offers will get accepted,” an Indian seller said.
A Maharashtra based steel mill reported a trade to a Gulf based trading firm at $900/mt FOB or slightly below, the source said.