Large Indian steel mills have cut their hot rolled coil (HRC) export offers further in reaction to mounting inventories, SteelOrbis has been informed. Suppliers have kept focusing on the Asian market, while trading to other destinations like Turkey or the EU has remained limited.
Indian steel mills have lowered prices by another $5/mt week on week to $420-425/mt FOB, reflecting the worsening of local demand conditions, bearish sentiments for October and rising unsold stocks. Some tonnage was sold to Vietnam at $445-450/mt CFR, which is equivalent to $425/mt FOB. Indian mills have faced tight competition from a Russian exporter, which was offering at the same level last week. This was another factor for the further decrease in ex-India prices.
The sources said that a combined volume of 50,000 mt of Indian HRC has been sold to one of the Southeast Asian countries at below $420/mt FOB, but this information was not confirmed by the time of publication. The CFR level in these deals is assessed by SteelOrbis at $435-440/mt CFR.
Desperation in pushing exports to check inventory costs is evident from the fact that the lowering of export offers has come at a time when the Indian rupee has been strengthening against the US dollar, moving up above the INR 71 to the dollar mark during the past week to INR 70.88 to the dollar, ensuring additional erosions of export margins in rupee terms.
