Ex-India billet prices have showed little change over the past week with sentiments worsening and bids from buyers in the markets being below $500/mt FOB, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles.
Ex-India billet reference prices are stable at $500-510/mt FOB, which reflects the lowest offers from private mills and market sources’ assessments of the tradable levels.
A government mill held an export tender for 30,000 mt of 150 mm prime concast billet and there has been speculation in the market that it was closed at $522/mt FOB, so in line with the seller’s expectations. However, this information has been actively denied by most market sources involved in export sales from India nowadays, as all of them believe there is no international market where this level could be accepted and this may just be a rumor to support the market mood.
Most market participants comprising sellers among private mills, however, said that, with spot sales offers at $505-510/mt FOB in the Gulf region failing to be converted to deals, the government export tender was largely an ‘outlier’ and hence had no impact on overall sentiments or trade conditions.
The sources said that there is uncertainty over ex-China prices and bids from most Asian destinations are not above $480-490/mt FOB, which does not work for local sellers and the Gulf buyers are hesitating to conclude deals leading to trading activity falling almost silent.
“Negative sentiments in key destinations are very persistent. Hopes of improvements have been belied too many times over the past week. Weak demand fundamentals across Asia and the Gulf are entrenched and hence local private mills are unwilling to be aggressive in pushing sales volumes overseas,” an official at a private mill said.
“I do not think ex-India prices will move below the $500/mt FOB mark which is necessary to conclude export sales under the current market conditions,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the local market, billet trade prices have continued to slip although the pace of the fall has eased over the past week amid modest support from merchant bookings by secondary rolling mills. Billet trade prices have lost INR 100/mt ($1.20/mt) to INR 42,700/mt ($520/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 250/mt ($3/mt) to INR 41,100/mt ($501/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 82.10