The local Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) market has showed little activity during the past week with key user industries still watching how pandemic restrictions are lifted across the different regions before making fresh bookings, although the floor of the price range has moved up with re-rollers declining supply commitments at lower levels, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles.
The local CRC price range in Indian has narrowed to INR 85,000-86,000/mt ($1,164-1,178/mt) ex-works compared to INR 83,000-86000/mt ($1136-1178/mt) ex-works last week.
The sources said that key consuming sectors like automobile manufacturers were still assessing how lockdown restrictions are being lifted in phases across key manufacturing hubs in the west and north before taking a decision to bring back closed assembly lines into production or increase output from existing lines operating at less than 50 percent capacity on average.
They said that most consumer durable and passenger car makers are still carrying high inventories and, considering that sales will continue to remain low even with restrictions being lifted, no industry has been in a hurry to restock raw materials and hence CRC prices are expected to remain range-bound in the coming weeks.
However, a section of market intermediaries said that prices could react if integrated steel mills increased HRC prices again for the second time in June, and standalone re-rollers will have no option but to pass on higher prices to their CRC buyers.
$1 = INR 73.00
