Indian local rebar prices showed signs of a slight rebound over the past week, with secondary producers withdrawing discount sales and attempting to push up prices to offset rise in price of billets and overall improvement in bookings received, particularly from real estate sector, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Tuesday, July 27.
Integrated steel mills maintained their prices largely because of their greater marketing focus on flat products and lower proportion of long products in their portfolio, secondary mills became more optimistic as real estate developers across markets were seen to increasing pace of project implementation and hence raw material restocking.
The sources said that rebar prices of integrated steel mills were maintained at INR 53,500- 54,000/mt ($719-726/mt) ex-works and the tradable price was heard slightly higher at around INR 55,000/mt ($739/mt) ex-Mumbai.
However, responding to rise in price of merchant sale of billets, secondary steel mills increased prices by around INR 1,000/mt ($13/mt) to INR 53,000/mt ($712/mt) ex-works and the tradable price heard at around INR 53,500/mt ($719/mt) ex-Kolkata, sources said.
According to traders and real estate sector analyst, several reports indicated revival in housing sales with one report indicating sales to have improved by 23 percent during April-June 2021-22 quarter across metropolitan areas of Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai and buoyed by the revival, real estate developers are planning to increase pace of project implementation progressively in tandem with the receding monsoon season.
The traders and analysts said that slight improvement in sentiments is evident as overall construction raw material bookings including rebar are seeing a slight overall improvement which is offering some headroom for secondary steel mills to increase prices marginally and cope with higher billet prices.
$1= INR 74.40