Local Indian pig iron prices have remained stable for the second consecutive week at INR 27,600/mt ($400/mt) ex-works even though trading activity has slackened during the past week owing to end-of-fiscal-year considerations and amid stray discounting in select regional markets, traders said on Wednesday, March 20.
“Prices are stable even as trades are falling. Both dealers and end-users particularly in the foundry sector are unwilling to make deals, locking up liquidity in stocks with the current fiscal year ending on March 31,” a Kolkata-based trader said.
“There is uncertainty over exports too. Even though state-run Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) floated an export tender of 25,000 mt during the past week, it did not have any impact on sentiment, especially when early in the month trading firm MMTC Limited was forced to cancel an export tender for 30,000 mt, with the poor response still preying on market sentiment,” the trader added.
Sources said that in select regional markets around Raipur in central India there have been reports of dealers offering discounts of INR 200/mt bring prices to INR 27,400/mt ($397/mt), indicating the emergence of weakness in market conditions, and the sources did not rule out that discounting will spread across other markets in the coming weeks in the absence of any immediate signs of a demand uptick.
$1 = INR 68.80