India has turned to billets imports over the past few weeks, given the stronger demand for rebar in the country. According to SteelOrbis’ market sources, the total tonnage of mainly Asian billet negotiated over the past two weeks is 150,000-155,000 mt, in talks to conclude at least four separate deals. However, though 100,000 mt have been finalized already, a number of negotiations are still ongoing, market sources said, to close all this tonnage or even more.
The majority of tonnage has changed hands at $520-530/mt CFR Mumbai port, and some market sources said that the lowest level of the import deal prices was $518/mt CFR.
Up to 50,000 mt of the total import volume is heard to be ex-Indonesia, while the balance is ex-China or other origins. The deal price for the ex-Indonesia material was $522-530/mt CFR, according to different sources.
Though not confirmed by the end-user, several market participants said that the large-volume booking was done by JSW Steel Limited.
Explaining the rationale of imports of semis, sources said that JSW Steel has a limited capacity for production of construction grade long products and most of its crude steel is for the captive conversion to flat products.
However, over the past several months, in view of the rapid movement of long products from mill-to-market and the rise in local sales prices of rebar, most integrated mills have been optimizing sales volumes of long products and this has triggered the rise in imports of billets.
Local billet prices have improved in the second half of this week, adding at least INR 500/mt ($6/mt) to INR 46,000/mt ($553/mt) ex-Mumbai and up to INT 44,000/mt ($529/mt) ex-Raipur. Integrated mills are facing their own tight supplies for captive conversion and have been seeking import bookings to meet the higher demand for rebars.