Ex-India billet prices have continued to remain under pressure with Chinese buyers remaining inactive and, though sellers overall have been refusing to cut prices, stray deals from secondary steel mills have been reported after they passed on the benefits of the weak Indian currency, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, April 21.
The sources said that the ex-India billet price range is at $570-595/mt FOB, down from $$585-595/mt FOB last week. The lower end of the range corresponded to sale by a secondary steel mill, though most major integrated producers from India have been seeing the market at much higher levels. The latest tradable value for BF billet from state-owned mills is still at $590-595/mt FOB.
“Chinese billet import prices are very volatile amid the weakening of their re-rolling mill output. With such realizations getting squeezed, Chinese buyers prefer ASEAN sourcing over ex-India billet, which attracts a two percent import duty,” an official from Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) said. “In a rising market, the import duty is not given a very high weightage. But the market is currently unsettled. Indian integrated mills for their part prefer to take a pause, to wait for the next upturn, and not adjust prices in a hurry,” he said.
Another 30,000 mt of billet from a state-owned mill have been sold under a tender at $592/mt FOB, just $2/mt lower than the previous auction. The final sales destination is expected to be China. This FOB price level corresponds to about $635-640/mt CFR, taking into account the freight from India and the trader’s margin.
Sources said that among the stray deals reported was a 25,000 mt tonnage booked for June shipment at $570/mt FOB, against an offer submitted at $572/mt FOB and adjusted for the currency exchange rate benefit to the buyer. The billet in this sale was most likely IF, sources said.
Meanwhile, the billet price rise in the local market took a pause with producers maintaining merchant sale prices at INR 38,600-39,400/mt ($515-526/mt) ex-works.
$1 = INR 74.88
