Despite local Indian integrated steel mills keeping their billet export allocations limited, their trading activity has revived during the past week riding on higher buying interest from the Southeast Asian market, offsetting the tepid response from Chinese buyers, sources told SteelOrbis on Wednesday, September 23.
Indian integrated steel mills have kept their billet export offers largely unchanged at $425-430/mt FOB, though most trades concluded during the past week were at the lower end of the range, mostly from buyers in the Southeast Asian market. This means that the price range has widened from $428-430/mt FOB last week.
The sources said that local integrated steel exporting mills have commenced bookings for December deliveries during the past week and kept export prices stable, and have been willing to conclude trades to maintain their market presence. For now, downturn risks in the October-December quarter are not big, but possibly the unpredictable demand in the local market is having an impact.
Sentiments in China have weakened and buyers there have been reluctant to book imports, while demand from Southeast Asia has been firm.
It has been learned that a western India-based integrated steel mill has concluded a modest volume billet trade of 15,000 mt for early December delivery with a Shanghai-based trading firm at the price of $425/mt FOB. Another eastern India-based steel mill has reported a deal for 20,000 mt also with a trader at the same price level. However, at least two market intermediaries said that both these deals were concluded at slightly lower prices, including 1-2 percent discounts, which, however, could not be independently confirmed or corroborated in the market.
An Odisha-based steel mill concluded a December delivery trade for 40,000 mt with the Philippines as the targeted market at $425-428/mt FOB. The same mill also concluded a smaller-volume trade for 25,000 mt at the slightly lower price of $422/mt FOB, with at least two traders claiming it to be a discounted deal.
Meanwhile, local merchant billet sales price of Indian integrated steel mills have edged up by INR 200/mt over the past week to INR 31,700-32,000/mt ($431-435/mt) ex-works, market sources said.
$1 = INR 73.50