Indian billet exporters' attempts to nudge up prices have been aborted as a fresh wave of pessimism has spread across key regions and buyers in the Gulf and Asia have been seeking alternative cheaper sourcing options, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday September 21.
Indian mills have abandoned efforts to maintain offers at the higher levels of $500-510/mt FOB, targeted earlier, as bids have fallen sharply to $440-450/mt FOB. As a result, the reference price as an average between offers and bids has slipped by $15/mt over the past week to $470-480/mt FOB.
According to sources, even low-volume deals from the Gulf region have completely dried up over the past week, with reports suggesting that buyers have been able to secure sourcing at prices below the $490/mt CFR mark, leaving Indian sellers outpriced from this key destination.
Reports in trade circles suggest that an export tender for 30,000 mt was canceled by a government mill last week as the highest bid of $440/mt FOB was significantly lower than “the internal reserve price of $500/mt FOB”, deepening negative sentiments in the market.
“Billet prices have turned extremely bearish both in local and overseas markets. Our assessment is that, if local prices continue to slide till the festival holidays, local producers will need to get back to overseas sales even at depressed price levels,” an official at a government mill said.
In the local market, merchant billet price are down INR 400/mt ($5/mt) to INR 49,200/mt ($617/mt) ex-Mumbai and down INR 1,000/mt ($12/mt) to INR 47,250/mt ($592/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 79.80