Indian billet exports have continued to remain inactive and attempts early in the week by mills to increase prices have failed and the tradable prices in Asia and the Gulf have remained low, with both buyers retreating and sellers pulling back offers, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles.
Ex-India billet offer prices have been pushed up to levels of $500-510/mt FOB, but no deals could be worked out as the emergence of cheaper or closer-shipment alternatives in most sales destinations prompted buyers to retreat.
Indian billet export prices have settled in the range of $460-490/mt FOB, which is slightly higher than $460-480/mt FOB seen last week. The price is indicative due to the absence of deals and the bearish outlook deepened across the Asian and Middle East regions, the sources said.
“Most key destination markets are reconciled to rising costs pushing up prices. But there is no demand to support such a cost push. Trade of semis is facing the impact of western mills either lowering output or closing down on the impact of energy costs. Mills in China are deferring all plans of increasing output and semis imports have all but come to a halt,” an official at a government mill said, pointing out that the resumption of higher-volume sales of ex-Iran and ex-ASEAN material aborted the attempts of sellers to push up prices.
“Indian sellers are insulated so far from the rise in energy costs. But other input costs, coal and iron ore, are on the rebound and there are limited options of using pricing to push deals,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the local market, billet trade prices have continued to weaken for the third consecutive week, triggering inventory pressures on mills. Billet trade prices have lost INR 800/mt ($10/mt) to INR 49,700/mt ($623/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down by INR 500/mt ($6/mt) to INR 47,000-47,500/mt ($589-595/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 79.80
