Over the past week, prices in the local Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) market have increased by INR 400/mt to INR 45,200/mt ($647) ex-works, on revival of demand and enabling the market to ignore reports of import shipments, traders said on Monday, August 13.
Market sources said that there have been reports of merchant traders concluding transactions for 20,000 mt of ex-Japan HRC, but any impact on local prices has been largely negated by higher demand from end-users and higher volume activity.
Sources said that some of the medium sized local steel mills have marginally reduced base price to enable them to liquidate inventories but since most of the large mills have decided to maintain base price for current month, price adjustments by small mills have not impacted the market generally.
“I am still cautious over current prices considering that gains during the past week has not been too high and higher bookings by end-users will have to sustain at least for two consecutive weeks for local HRC prices to consolidate at higher levels,” a Mumbai based trader said.
“The market is also keeping a close watch whether the import bookings last week gathers momentum into a trend or a one-off case and this will determine medium term outlook of the market,” he added.
$1 = INR 69.83