Local Indian cold rolled coil (CRC) prices have remained unchanged during the past week at INR 44,200/mt ($682/mt) ex-works, due to thin trading conditions and as market participants prefer to await November pricing signals from Indian steel mills, traders said on Tuesday, October 31.
“Base prices of local steel mills for November deliveries can go in either directions. Buyers are hence not willing to make any fresh commitments owing to month-end considerations,” a Mumbai-based trader said
“I am not too sure whether market expectations of a downward adjustment of CRC base prices will be met by the steel mills. Even though there are reports of inventory build-ups at the mills,” the trader added.
Two other traders said that local steel mills are hoping to manage inventories by leveraging the slight revival in buying interest from buyers in Southeast Asian markets. They said that large steel mills are beginning to offer discounts on ex-India CRC ranging around $15-20/mt at $620-630/mt on FOB basis and, if the steel mills are able to increase export shipment volumes over the next few months, the pressure on them to adjust domestic prices to control inventories will be smaller.
$1 = INR 64.77