Large Indian steel mills have continued to push up export offers during the past week to major destinations like Southeast Asia, but only limited deals were concluded as neither buyers or sellers were in a rush to conclude new transactions, SteelOrbis learned on Monday, January6.
Most large steel mills have increased offers for hot rolled coils (HRC) by $5-10/mt to $485-490/mt FOB, with deals for limited volumes mostly concluded at the lower end of the range during the past week.
A western India-based steel mill concluded a deal for 8,000 mt of HRC at $485/mt FOB for early March delivery to Vietnam, which corresponds to about $510/mt CFR, $10/mt above the previous booking price to this destination. An eastern India-based steel mill sold a similar volume at $486/mt FOB for early March delivery to Malaysia.
The sources said that overall activity has remained low largely because most exporting steel mills were not aggressive in concluding contracts as they have been waiting to adjust their March delivery export allocation and are preparing for a further local base price increase. At the same time, buyers in key markets in Southeast Asia have been willing to settle for higher offers, but are waiting to conclude a deal only if exporters are ready to offer a discount adjusted in line with the sharp fall in the Indian rupee against the US dollar towards the INR 72 to the dollar mark, currently at INR 71.60, the sources added.
