In the past week, local Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) prices have moved sideways, remaining unchanged for the fourth consecutive week at INR 35,500/mt ($534/mt) ex-works, reflecting sluggish market conditions and muted demand from key consuming sectors, traders said on Monday, June 13.
“HRC prices have remained unchanged for a month as there is no demand from key consuming industries in the engineering and infrastructure sectors,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“In absence of any imports at competitive prices due to the minimum import price (MIP), key user industries are in no mood to stock high-priced local HRC apart from meeting their own minimum requirements. No one is interested in replenishing inventories, resulting in sluggish market conditions,” he added.
Market sources said that, without any uptick in demand and with steel mills maintaining base prices unchanged for the current month, local HRC prices would continue to move sideways within a very narrow range as there are no short-term trend indicators in the market.