As per information collected from market sources, an ex-China SAE1006 HRC import deal for around 10,000 mt was reported to a Maharashtra-based re-rolling mill. The price is said to be $875-880/mt CFR Nhava Sheva. The material is likely to be shipped in January.
Though this is a signal of some revival of imports of HRC, which had been halted for some time, most market sources do not believe that this will be a trend. First of all, Chinese suppliers may withdraw low-priced offers, seeing some rebound in their local market. Secondly, there could be demand only for some small volumes and customers will not book material with very long lead terms.
The re-rolling mills have started importing relatively small volumes of ex-China coils as local mills cannot commit January shipments for small lots. At the same time, the re-rolling mills have started to revert back to six-month supply contracts for CRC with its automobile manufacturing customers from monthly short-term contracts for the past several months, when auto companies were facing component shortages and were forced to reduce output and hence were unwilling to take regular deliveries from re-rolling mills.