Local Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) trade prices have remained stable during the past week, but trade activity has failed to show any improvement even though large mills maintained base prices but have been heard to be offering discounts, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Monday, July 7.
Sources said that trade level-prices are stable at INR 50,600/mt ($591/mt) ex-Mumba and also unchanged at INR 52,500/mt ($613/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
The sources said that most large mills have kept July base prices unchanged, but most are heard to be offering discounts ranging at INR 1,000-2,000/mt ($12-24/mt) in efforts to support the weak market conditions but have failed to have any impact with trade channels, continuing to report poor offtake from industrial users and low restocking by market intermediaries.
“The depth of the market weakness can be gauged by the fact that even deep discounts from mills and low import competition is failing to have any impact on trade conditions. The market is suffering from a fundamental demand weakness and pricing will not change that,” a Mumbai-based distributor said.
“Several market intermediaries are seeing heavy liquidity challenges. Traders have to rapidly push volumes into the market to check rising inventory risks and to do this are having to offer extended credit terms over and above weak prices. This is blocking a lot of cash flow,” he added.
$1 = INR 85.67
