Over the past week, Indian flat steel product export offers have showed mixed trends during the past week with commercial exporters maintaining hot rolled coil (HRC) offers unchanged, while trying to increase offers for cold rolled coil (CRC) and plates but with little success in concluding transactions, traders said on Monday, January 14.
“Traditional buyers of Indian flat steel products from markets like Vietnam and Indonesia have been totally absent from the market and Indian commercial exporters’ selective increases in offers have been largely notional,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“The outlook for Indian flat steel product exports is extremely negative as neither commercial exporters nor domestic steel mills are willing to aggressively price offers to counter weak finished steel prices. The negative export outlook is borne out by government data released last week that showed Indian steel exports down 38 percent year on year during the April-December period of 2018,” the trader added.
According to market sources, Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) prices have remained at $515/mt FOB. The sources said that a few commercial exporters have been able to conclude contracts with European buyers for a relatively small aggregate volume in the range of 2,000-3,000 mt with at least one contract reportedly concluded at an additional discount of $10/mt at an effective offer of $505/mt FOB.
Market sources said that commercial exporters have increased cold rolled coil (CRC) export offers by $20/mt week on week to $560/mt FOB, but this was counter-productive as no buyer was willing to conclude transaction at the higher level.
Ex-India plate offers
Indian plates export offers have been increased by $20/mt week on week to $570/mt but no transactions have been reported in the market during the past week.