Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) exporters have continued to push up their prices and improve sales realizations adopting ‘differentiated’ pricing strategies for key destination markets and leveraging the absence of Chinese sellers, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles.
The sources said that Indian HRC exporters have adopted a wide range of offer prices for Asia and the EU to maximize realizations from overseas sales as reports indicated that rebate cuts on Chinese steel exports would be implemented sooner than expected, possibly even next month, and ex-China offers have been largely absent from key export markets in Asia.
The EU market has remained strong and consecutive price hikes by local steel majors like ArcelorMittal over the past few weeks coupled with persistent material shortages have been a big positive signal for Indian suppliers. However, overall booking volumes have been a bit lower owing to the near exhaustion of the EU tariff quota.
Ex-India HRC prices have reached $740-840/mt FOB, up by $10/mt over the past week, with the lower end reflecting sales to Vietnam and the higher end corresponding to the latest trades to Europe.
Vietnamese re-rollers have been interested in purchases of Indian coils, seeing a lack of competitive offers from other destinations, including China. The latest trades were confirmed at $740-750/mt FOB to this destination, and there have been reports of higher offers since then.
An Odisha-based integrated steel mill reported a trade for 30,000 mt with a Vietnam-based trading firm at a price of around $740-745/mt FOB. Also, a Maharashtra-based integrated steel mill has reported a trade for 30,000 mt also to Vietnam at a slightly higher price - $750/mt FOB, the sources said. With freight at $35/mt minimum, the deal prices correspond to $775-785/mt CFR Vietnam. For now, most official offers from Indian mills are at $800/mt CFR and above, though in negotiations it is possible to get $790/mt CFR, according to sources,
Indian mills have remained bullish in the EU market, seeing a further local price increase and persisting demand. One seller reported a trade of about 15,000 mt to the EU at $840/mt FOB, up from $830/mt FOB last week. The new level translates to about $885-890/mt CFR. But after that, most offers from India to southern Europe increased to $900/mt CFR, SteelOrbis has learned.
No confirmed deals have been reported from India to the Middle East, to the UAE in particular, over the past week. However, there was a rumour that one exporter sold at $750/mt FOB or slightly above, the sources said, which, however, has not been confirmed by the time of publication. “Unfortunately, there are no offers from Indian mills at present. Neither are there inquiries in the local market,” a source from the UAE said.
