Large Indian steel mills have cut prices of flat products for July deliveries, in reaction to rising inventories and the slowdown in stock movements during the current monsoon season, SteelOrbis learned from industry circles on Friday, July 10.
The mills have dropped prices by INR 1,000/mt ($10/mt) for HRC and by INR 1,200/mt ($12/mt) for CRC with effect immediately.
Following the reduction in prices, the base price for hot rolled coil (HRC) stands at INR 58,200/mt ($609/mt) at the lowest, while some mills are still officially offering at INR 1,000-2,000/mt ($10-20/mt) higher than this level. However, even after the decline in base prices, trade prices in India are at lower levels of INR 56,000-57,000/mt ex-warehouse, excluding discounts.
Cold rolled coil base prices stand at INR 65,300-67,800/mt ($663-710/mt). Trade CRC prices are stable at INR 64,500/mt ($677/mt) ex-Mumbai this week.
According to industry officials, mills have had to take a very strategic call on prices, balancing between pressures from rising costs of production and rising inventories, and finally deciding that the latter exerted stronger pressure.
The industry officials said that, even though steel consumption was showing robust growth on year-on-year basis, producers decided to give more importance to the month-on-month slowdown in demand by reducing prices in order to ease pressures from inventories.
