Local Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) prices have continued to inch lower amid muted trade activity in trade channels during the festival holidays and rerollers pushing higher volumes to end-users, but market participants have maintained a positive outlook for a demand improvement and consider that the falling trend will be reversed when producers start increasing base prices.
Sources said that benchmark 0.9 mm CRC trade prices have slipped INR 400/mt ($5/mt) to INR 63,100/mt ($758/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 200/mt ($3/mt) to INR 64,250/mt ($772/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
The sources said that, despite some price drops, the positive outlook has been maintained based on large end-users like automobile companies, though taking a pause from restocking, being expected to return later in the week to make fresh bookings from re-rollers once business activity fully resumes after the holidays.
At the same time, trade channels will also resume restocking, having significantly reduced inventories over the past fortnight, the sources said.
“Global prices have softened but the local currency prevailing at a historical low against the dollar and expected to slide further amid higher crude oil prices and geo-political reasons in the Middle East would act a natural barrier to any increase in import competition to local mills,” a Mumbai-based distributor said.
“The current downtrend cycle is essentially driven by business remaining closed. The downtrend will start reversing towards the end of the current week. Mills will also start commencing base price increases after 7-10 days,” he added.
$1 = INR 83.20
