Local Indian billet prices have started to trend downwards, though they are still much higher than the workable level in the international market. Key Southeast Asian customers are expecting a price correction to set in before making fresh deals, and so Indian suppliers are not very active in the billet export market, SteelOrbis was informed on Wednesday, January 22.
Local Indian billet (grade IS2831 - 100 mm x 100 mm) prices have lost INR 200/mt ($3/mt) during the past week to INR 30,800/mt ($433/mt) ex-stockyard in reaction to negligible export contracts and the fall in rebar prices with small and medium-scale rebar producers deferring billet restocking.
Large integrated steel mills have maintained their target for the export market at $435/mt FOB, but, with buyers in China largely absent, key buyers in the Philippines and other Asian countries have been seeking discounts, willing to pay only $440/mt CFR and below. As a result, the current workable prices for ex-India billet are at $420/mt FOB, according to sources.
“Buyers in Southeast Asia are waiting for billet offers to correct downwards and shipments from Iran have not fallen as expected. We are also not pushing offers aggressively as our rebar inventories are low and we are increasing captive conversion of billets,” a manager from Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) said.
“We will revise offers only in the middle of next month, once a new market trend emerges after buyers resume business activity at the end of the Chinese holidays ahead,” he added.