Ex-India billet prices have remained unchanged, but no significant trades have been reported over the past week with sellers pulling back from the export market, while buyers were largely absent too, maintaining that market conditions will remain poor, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles. Even though the local market in India has continued to move down rapidly, the situation in the export market has been even worse for Indian producers.
Ex-India billet official prices have been maintained in the range of $500-520/mt FOB, but sellers, unlike the previous week, were not heard to be submitting discounted offers below the $500/mt FOB mark.
With local billet prices continuing to indicate rapid declines, mills have not been in a position to risk a double erosion of margins, from both local as well as overseas sales.
“There are some signs of stability in the Asian markets. But this stability is being interpreted differently by sellers and buyers. The former are hopeful of the stability leading to a price increase, while buyers feel the market and demand are too bearish to support any such increase,” an official at a government mill said.
“With realizations from both overseas and domestic sales under aggravated pressure, mills are choosing local sales to reduce dual risks. We do not hear of any government mill allocating export volumes over the past one month. We assess that any price consolidation above the $520/mt FOB mark can trigger a return of sellers. But the big negative is that we are still hearing tradable levels in the Asian market at $490-500/mt CFR,” he said.
Trade circles said that local billet prices have continued on a sharp downtrend, losing INR 1,300/mt ($16/mt) to INR 47,000/mt ($574/mt) ex-Mumbai and down INR 1,550/mt ($19/mt) to INR 44,300/mt ($541/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region.
$1 = INR 81.90
