SteelMint: PELLEX down by INR 150/t in recent deals

SteelMint’s bi-weekly domestic pellet index “PELLEX ” has decreased by INR 150/t to INR 14,550/t DAP Raipur in the recent deals. Around 20,000 t pellet deals have been reported in this publishing window from outside Raipur at INR 14,200/t DAP, Raipur.

Raipur based pellet makers kept the offers stable at INR 14,500- 15,000/t for Fe 63/62.5% grade. However as per the market participants reported to SteelMint, few resale offers have also started surfacing in the market by sponge makers at INR 14,650/t (DAP, Raipur). Though the deals have not been reported so far this week.

Increasing restrictions on rising COVID cases followed by extended lock down in Raipur have slowed down operation of plants. Movement of trucks is also getting affected due to labour aavailability issues.

Despite hike in iron ore offers by NMDC last week buyers are still preferring DRCLO and lumps over pellet and shifted their kiln feed.

Towards the end of last week Odisha’s Essel Mining has increased INR 800/t further in the lump and INR 700/t fines. The revised offer for lump (5-18 mm, Fe 62%) stands at INR 11,100/t (ex-mines, including Royalty, DMF & NMET) and that of fines at INR 7,700/t. Tighter availability of high-grade ore has further resulted in a price hike.

Pellet sponge (P-DRI) price in Raipur has decreased around INR 1,400/t from the last week’s closing to INR 29,500/t today. On a daily basis also, prices have moved down by around INR 500/t.

Indian pellet market overview-:

India pellet prices across the regions stable in this publishing window, though Bellary offers down at around INR 200/t on the back of fall in sponge offers.

Western India-based – Jindal SAW Ltd has increased its pellet offer by INR 450/t w-o-w. The current offer for Fe 63% grade pellets stands at INR 15,200/t DAP Kandla.

Rationale – PELLEX has been derived using data points: i.e., trades, offers and bid. You can download the detailed methodology by clicking on this link Click here

• Single deal reported in this publishing window and considered in the index calculation and kept the weightage 50% weightage.
• Seven firm offers and bids were reported and out of those four offers from Raipur and three from outside Raipur. Six were taken for price calculation and given a weightage of 50%.

Region-wise pellet offers and deals: