Ex-India billet prices have remained stable during the past week, but the mood in the market has worsened further amid the falls seen in China early this week, and so most Indian sellers have been inclined to exit the market without much leverage on pricing to push overseas sales, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, June 4.
Ex-India billet prices have “notionally” been kept unchanged at $415-425/mt FOB, but the bottom of the market has been knocked out by the Trump administration doubling steel tariffs to 50 percent, sources said.
Bids heard at $400/mt FOB “may be unreasonable even in current market conditions, and the response of ex-India sellers too was not economically viable,” a source said.
“The revival of trade activity although at challenging prices seen in the previous week was seen as a positive change. But this proved to be short-lived due to the fresh salvo of tariffs fired by Donald Trump. The doubling of tariffs will see a lot of surplus chasing less demand and trade diversions will further depress global trade-level prices,” an official from an Indian mill said.
“Some of the biggest supply-side overload will be seen in China and this will have a contagion impact on most steel producing countries. Under these circumstances, it seems that the domestic market will be the only safe haven for sales,” he added.
However, the local billet market has also continued to take hits from falling long product prices and secondary mills reducing merchant offtake of semis. Billet trade prices have lost INR 400/mt ($5/mt) to INR 41,400/mt ($482/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 600/mt ($7/mt) to INR 38,900/mt ($453/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 85.89