Ex-India billet prices have continued to remain under pressure as some positive sentiments early in the week have not been sustained, but a few local sellers have been able to keep trading active for small volumes at lower prices amid pre-Ramadan restocking in the Middle East, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, February 26.
However, with local billet trade prices on the rebound, private mills have largely continued to focus on local sales.
Sources said that, while ex-India billet offers are unchanged at $440-450/mt FOB, small-volumes deals in the Middle East have been reported at the lower end of the range as the buyers have only been looking at pre-holiday “emergency restocking”.
This included a trade for 20,000 mt by an eastern India-based mill at $433/mt FOB, while another producer concluded a deal for supply of 15,000 mt at $425/mt FOB to an undisclosed destination.
As a result, the ex-India reference price has settled at $425-440/mt FOB, down from $430-450/mt FOB last week.
“Current bids are unreasonably low. We are hearing some bids even at $400/mt FOB. We do not think any transactions are being done at such prices, but it is an indication that previous attempts by sellers to increase prices have failed and there is too much supply amid too little demand in Asia,” a source at the Indian mill said.
“Some stray low -olume deals are being concluded at low prices by a few local mills, either because of need to maintain market presence in key markets or with key customers or a bit of year-end stock liquidation to get cash on the books,” they said.
Meanwhile, billet trade prices have showed a good rebound riding on the strong long products market, prompting secondary mills to increase offtake of semis. Billet trade prices are up INR 600/mt ($7/mt) to INR 43,000/mt ($499/mt) ex-Mumbai and up INR 400/mt ($5/mt) to INR 39,550/mt ($459/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 86.20