Indian mills raise flat steel prices, no announcement on longs

Two large Indian mills, JSW and AM/NS announced price hikes of upto INR 2,000-3,000/t ($27-41) in HRC and upto INR 3,000-5,000/t ($41-69) on CRC. However, no announcement has yet been made on long steel prices, SteelMint confirmed from its reliable channels. There are possibly two reasons why long steel prices have not been touched so far. One would be that construction activities continue to remain subdued and second is that the billet exports have dried up after Chinese ports placed restrictions as well as Nepal’s lockdown. Combined export to these two counties accounts for nearly 40-50% of India’s billet exports.

List price of JSW on Exy-Mumbai basis

• HRC (2.5-8mm) = INR 70,000-70,500/t
• CRC (0.9mm) = INR 87,500-88,000/t

List price of AM/NS on Exy-Mumbai basis

• HRC (2.5-8mm) = INR 70,000-70,500/t
• CRC (0.9mm) = INR 85,000-85,500/t

SteelMint has come to know that some Indian mills are pushing their Re-bar parcels in the export market to liquidate their inventories. Price levels are reported to be in the range of $730-735/t CFR HongKong on actual weight basis for June shipments. Participants mentioned that some parcels have been booked at these levels in the last few days.

On the other hand, most Indian mills are yet to book their July end shipments for HRC exports, which we expect could happen by second week of June. Major concerns for Indian mills would be the low buying interest from Vietnam (India’s largest HRC export destination), where the number of COVID cases are rising, and the fact that European Union is yet to declare fresh quarterly quotas for shipments of HRC into Europe. Participants highlighted that the quotas are expected to be extended for yet another year with some changes in volumes. This, however, is yet to be announced. Notably, Indian mills had exhausted the second quarter quota on first day of the three month period.

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has floated an export tender for around 50,000 t of steel cargos, which includes slabs, billets and HRC for July shipments.

Chinese futures: Yesterday iron ore and steel futures in China continued the uptrend, gaining by 5.7% and 2% respectively. In early morning trading sessions today, futures have witnessed a marginal decline against yesterday’s close.

Prices as on 8:50 IST, 2nd June. Changes indicated against closing price of 01st June