India: silico manganese prices edged lower as selling pressure rises

Indian silico manganese prices have shown down trend w-o-w due to low demand and higher inventory with the Indian producers.

According to SteelMint’s assessment on 21 Feb’22, currently, the transactional prices of silico manganese are lowered by 4% w-o-w at INR 94,800 /t exw-Raipur, and INR 93,100/t ex-Durgapur for HC 60-14 grade. Meanwhile, exporters are offering at $1,300/t for 60-14 and $1,410/t for 65-16 grade lowered by 3% prior to last week, on FOB India basis.

Weekly highlights

•  Indian smelters were facing high selling pressure owing to a lack of buying at last week’s prevailing prices. This forced smelters to reduce their prices. Meanwhile, SteelMint has recorded around 7,000 t trade in manganese alloys amid reducing prices last week.
  “If the same situation persists further, prices might be down till 90,000/t for 60-14 grade”, One of our sources explained. This attribute to low-profit margin holds from the producers’ side owing to high production cost due to increase in manganese ore prices.
•  Export prices also went down due to low inquiries received from overseas buyers. Also, Indian producers were expecting the enquiries from the Europe region, but they were showing low interest in Indian commodities due to lack of containers and high freight costs. In addition, a Letter of credit will be compulsory for the buyer and seller during the trade from India and Egypt from Mar’22, which may be the concern for lowering the trade.
• Furthermore, the overall steel market has shown a moderate graph in terms of stabilizing trade and prices. However, prices of raw materials for steel are on the higher side. Consequently, moderate steel demand resisted steel producers to book silico manganese at higher levels.

China’s market reviews
The silicon-manganese (60-14) market prices marginal fall of around RMB 100/t, with the offer in Inner Mongolia at RMB 7,450/t, and stable in the price of Guizhou at RMB 7,100/t (ex-work prices) prior to last week. In addition, the inquiry prices were relatively low from traders and the market was getting a gap of RMB 100-200/t from the manufacturer side.

Outlook
Market participants are confused about the bearish market and there is a lag between the quotation from buyers’ and sellers’ sides. Despite the current situation producers are anticipating a further hike due to the high cost of raw material and crude steel.