Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) exporters were forced to drop prices further over the past week as the workable price definitively fell below the $600/mt FOB mark in response to continued weakening of market conditions across Asia and the Middle East regions along with fall in demand for export tax exempted alloyed HRC, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles.
Sources said that despite dropping prices, Indian exporters continued to face ‘severe challenges in concluding deals’ in view of still tough competition.
Indian SAE1006 HRC prices have come to $560-590/mt FOB with the midpoint at $575/mt FOB, down by $22.5/mt on average from last week. Most market participants have been seeing the tradable level close to $560-570/mt FOB.
“Any deal below the $600/mt FOB mark is not profitable for local sellers,” an official in a private mill said. “Indian mills are facing inventory pressures so they can seek realizations at lower prices. Talks of key destination markets having bottomed out has been premature,” he said.
Offers from Indian suppliers to the European market have been reported at $710/mt CFR (translates to $610/mt FOB as the highest), at the level the deal was done last week. But this week the tradable level has been already lower, according to sources, at $690/mt CFR. A small volume deal has been rumoured at even a lower level, but it could not be confirmed by the time of publication and mills are denying they are giving such prices.
An offer for ex-India coils to Turkey has been heard at $620-630/mt CFR, which is $20-30/mt below the level seen a week ago.
Traders have been offering Indian HRC to Vietnam at $590-600/mt CFR (this translates to $560/mt FOB), though no new deals have been heard so far.
