Breaking a prolonged period of inactivity, Indian billet exporters have started to show some interest in export sales as local prices have been showing continuous drops. But since the international market experienced a strong downtrend and has now started to increase mostly indicatively, export trading activity is still poor, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles.
The tradable level for ex-India billet has moved to $480-490/mt FOB this week from $480-500/mt FOB in the previous weeks and there have been rumors that at least two Indian mills have concluded modest-volume trades. However, this could not be confirmed by the time of publication and sources said that negotiations may continue as buyers are very cautious.
According to the sources, an Odisha-based mill reported a trade at $480/mt FOB for end-of-December shipment to a trading firm. Another sale for 10,000 mt at $485/mt FOB is rumored as having been done to the Gulf market, though no confirmation about this has been received.
These deals were considerably lower than the official offers submitted a week ago at $500-520/mt FOB although no deals have been heard in the market at these levels.
According to two officials at a private mill, two factors made exports more desirable for Indian mills over the past week. Firstly, domestic billet prices have continued on a tailspin and mills have been faced with mounting inventories amid sagging rebar prices. And secondly, expectations of prices rebounding in Asian markets have gained strength and also of China resuming import purchases of semis in the coming weeks, and Indian sellers are keen to maintain a market presence even at lower price realizations.
Meanwhile, in the local market, merchant billet prices have suffered major setbacks as secondary mills reduced bookings in the face of the slump in rebar prices. Sources said that billet trade prices lost INR 2,000/mt ($25/mt) to INR 45,000/mt ($555/mt ) ex-Mumbai and also lost INR 2,000/mt ($25/mt) to INR 42,300/mt ($522/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 81.10
