Local Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) prices have remained stable in a market of low activity owing to the festival holidays ahead and some caution among trade channels on committing fresh bookings, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Monday, October 30.
Sources said that the benchmark 0.9 mm CRC price has remained stable at INR 63,100/mt ($758/mt) ex-Mumbai and is unchanged at INR 64,250/mt ($771/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
However, the sources maintained that, despite the slowdown in market activity largely because of the holidays ahead and the tendency among distributors to liquidate stocks and improve cash flows, mills are expected to push ahead with hiking base prices on the back of the resumption of full business in a week’s time and will break the range-bound trend seen over the past few weeks.
They said that large users like automobile companies are almost sufficiently stocked up with raw materials for higher outputs of passenger cars to meet the festival season peak in demand, but are expected to return for fresh restocking by mid-November and provide support for prices to rebound.
“This is just a festival-induced lull in the market. Demand remains robust and, coupled with expected base price hikes by mills, will put prices back on an uptrend soon,” a Mumbai-based distributor told SteelOrbis.
“Large re-rollers have been successful in liquidating inventories by lowering prices over the past few weeks and hence will be preparing to push up November delivery prices. We see an upside potential of around INR 1000/mt ($12/mt) in trade-level prices over the next two to three weeks,” he added.
$1 = INR 83.30