Indian local rebar (TMT) market continued to remain under pressures of unsold stocks during the past week, with producers maintaining prices but large steel mills beginning to offer discounts and increasing focus on retail sales, traders said on Tuesday.
Large steel mills maintained prices at INR 32,000/mt ($445/mt) ex-stockyard, but were reportedly offering discount of about INR 400/mt ($6/mt). Market sources said that larger steel mills with higher reliance on B2B sales were hard hit by lower off-take by government sector projects and were increasing efforts to push volumes through retail sales at discounted prices.
The sources said that small and medium rebar producers maintained prices in current 2-year low at INR 32,200/mt ($448/mt) ex-stockyard, according to SteelOrbis information.
“The priority for all producers is currently to manage capacity utilizations of plants and check inventory buildup. Using pricing and discounts to manage stocks is not working in an environment of acute demand slowdown and absence of any new projects,” an official of the leading eastern India based rebar producer Shyam Steel said.
“We are hoping for early withdrawal of monsoon rains and festival season to start next month to trigger a demand revival in the market,” he added.
With virtually no export bookings reported from any of the large steel mills, unsold stocks was expected to continue to put pressure on rebar prices or further widening of discounts.
$1 = INR 71.9