While most Indian mills have continued to remain absent from billet exports, the tradable prices for billets are going down rapidly amid sustained bearish sentiments in the Asian region and falling finished steel prices in China, SteelOrbis has learned from trade and industry circles.
The tradable price level for ex-India billet has dropped to $710-720/mt FOB compared to the reference price of $730-740/mt FOB a week ago. Only one tender was held over the past seven days and no bookings have been reported from India over the past three weeks.
A government-run mill held an export tender for 90 mm prime concast billet on April 27, with company sources claiming to have received a highest bid of $714/mt FOB. The tender for 150 mm billet was held by the same mill a week ago and “it was not booked. Also, no deals from SAIL have been seen for a long time,” a trader said.
Taking into account that the tradable level in the Southeast Asian billet market has slipped to $770/mt CFR at the highest for now, buyers are unlikely to consider any FOB price for ex-India 150 mm billet above $700-710/mt.
The situation in China is even worse. “Indian billet has been outpriced in most Asian markets by a surfeit of ex-Russia materials flowing into China. We hear of deals as low as $650-670/mt CFR China and Indian mills cannot match such offers,” a source at state-run steel producer Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) said.
“Steel prices and demand have not revived in China as expected and buyers are not active in the local market and it is not only because of the price. Demand for semis is very low. With the fresh wave of the pandemic, we do not see a recovery in demand or prices in the near and medium term,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the local market merchant billet prices in India have continued on a downtrend at a faster pace, losing INR 3,000/mt ($39/mt) to INR 55,600/mt ($726/mt) ex-Raipur in the central regional market.
$1 = INR 76.60
