Ex-India billet prices have been kept stable, while buying interest in purchases has been somewhat better even though sellers have been unable to improve sales margins with too many sellers being active in the main destinations, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday May 29.
The reference price for Indian billet has remained at $505-510/mt FOB, while official offers from large mills are still at $520-530/mt FOB.
A government-run mill has reported a bid for 20,000 mt from a trading firm at $505/mt FOB. Also, a private mill was in negotiations for 30,000 mt for the MENA region at $510/mt FOB, though the price was assessed as being on the high side for the current market. In addition, another eastern India-based integrated mill has been ready to sell 20,000 mt of billet to Asia at $505/mt FOB, the sources said.
“Buyers turning active indicates better demand but there are too many aggressive sellers in the Asian and Middle East markets for local sellers to be able to improve prices. The positive is that export volumes are up but the limited upside potential is a negative for Indian mills,” a mill said.
“In our assessment, more local sellers are turning active in overseas sales as the uptrend in local prices may be reversing after having touched a peak. Also, with rebar prices softening, integrated mills have more surplus inventories of semis and need to push exports to avoid inventory build-ups,” he said.
The slowdown in the domestic merchant billet trade has been reflected in prices moving down by INR 700/mt ($8/mt) to INR 46,500/mt ($559/mt) ex-Mumbai and down INR 350/mt($4/mt) to INR 44,200/mt ($531/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 83.20
