Indian traders seek even lower HRC prices in anticipation of further falls in China

With Chinese origin HRC offers (for 3-4 mm thickness) to India softening by $35/mt in the last three weeks, the price level of these offers is currently at around $510/mt CFR India for November shipments. Meanwhile, hardly any CIS origin HRC offers to India are heard for the time being. On the other hand, market players think that Ukrainian origin HRC offers to India are far from competitive at their level of $540/mt CFR India. In this picture, Chinese offers appear to have an advantage of approximately $70/mt (not including import duties) over Indian domestic production. Accordingly, it is thought that HRC prices in the local Indian market cannot be indifferent anymore to this rapid decline in Chinese offers and it is expected that the domestic producers in India will likely decrease their base prices by INR 1,500-2,000/mt ($31-42/mt) from the current level of INR 30,000/mt ($629/mt) ex-works. However, China is currently celebrating its National Day holiday (October 1-8), and the local Indian market has thus gained some breathing space due to the lack of Chinese offers during the holiday period. Indian flat steel producers are now desperately hoping for an improvement in the Chinese flat steel market.