Indian state-owned steel producer SAIL closed an export billet sale of up to 20,000 mt of 125 mm billet at $600/mt FOB late last week, up by $10/mt compared to the previous deal for 150 mm billet signed by another Indian mill earlier in the week.
Market sources said that this cargo is also most probably targeting the Egyptian market, which has reopened lately after the cancelation of safeguard duties. “They [customers from Egypt] are buying mainly 125-130 mm billet,” one source said. But after a number of deals last week for billet of different origins - Iranian, ex-CIS and Indian - prices are under bigger pressure now. A few sources confirmed that the tradable level in Egypt for imported billet is $670-675/mt CFR at the moment (last week deals were in the wide range of $650-690/mt CFR). The freight from India to Egypt is around $70/mt, and so anything above $600/mt FOB will be hard to achieve in the next contracts, sources have said.
On the other hand, Indian mills (as well as mills from other countries) are still under strong pressure from the position cargoes redirected from China. The latest deals for ex-India billet from Chinese sellers were done at $624-630/mt CFR to Turkey last week, while to Southeast Asia at least two contracts also for Indian material for prompt shipment were signed at $618-620/mt CFR.
