Ex-India billet prices have inched up only slightly over the past week, and mills have continued to refrain from aggressively pushing sales overseas in view of the slowdown in the pace of the uptrend and have preferred to wait for a trend to emerge as business activity picks up after the holiday in China, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, February 1.
The ex-India billet reference price is at $570-580/mt FOB, up by $5/mt from $565-575/mt FOB last week. The highest bids received by suppliers averaged in the range of $575-580/mt FOB, but, with sellers’ $600/mt FOB target proving elusive, mills have not been pushing to convert them into confirmed trades.
At least two in trade circles claimed that an Odisha-based mill submitted new offers for April shipment billet at $620/mt FOB, but no confirmation was available either from the seller or market circles regarding a concluded deal.
Last week, an Indian state-owned mill sold a lot of billet at $572/mt FOB to a trader.
Recently, a minor volume trade of 10,000 mt for delivery to the Gulf region was reported at $578/mt FOB, the trader said, but the information could not be confirmed by the time of publication.
“The market for overseas sales is good. But the rebound is still below sellers’ expectations. Ex-China prices have increased but not as fast as expected. Taking these into considerations, the mills, led by government-run companies, have not floated any export tender over the past week. Only small-volume spot deals are being confirmed by mills,” an official at an Indian mill said.
Meanwhile, in the local market, a price correction has continued for the second consecutive week, prompting a section of intermediaries to forecast mills becoming more active in overseas sales in the coming week, even at current stable realizations. Billet prices have lost INR 800/mt ($10/mt) to INR 50,500/mt ($617/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 400/mt ($5/mt) to INR 47,100/mt ($575/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
