Indian Pig Iron Export Prices down by USD 20/MT

Indian Pig iron market remained bearish owing to falling global steel prices.

On 21 Jan’15, a bid for Indian Pig iron was placed at USD 301/MT FoB East Coast of India by MTPL. MMTC is yet to award the only bid that it had received by MTPL for 30,000 MT tender it issued on 13 Jan, 2015.  MTPL is a Singapore based company & wholly owned subsidiary of MMTC. Contrastingly, Prime Carbon bidded about USD 306/MT i.e. about USD 5/MT higher to RINL in the same month, but RINL chose to decline.

Though, the bid received by MMTC is USD 20/MT low from last export deal, it is expected to seal at USD 301/MT, FoB ECI. Agreeing to it, the market participants also shared,“It is fair to seal the bid, witnessing the current scenario.”

Pig Iron Prices in CIS Nations slip by USD 15/MT

Pig iron offers in CIS nations witness a fall of USD 15/MT on the backdrop of poor demand in its prime exporting nations such US, Italy etc. Current prices are assessed at USD 315/MT, FoB Black Sea.

Global Scrap Offers down

Continuous fall in Scrap offers in the global market is also affecting Pig iron sentiments. Buyers prefer Scrap over Pig iron. Scrap prices have corrected by USD 15-20/MT M-o-M.

Indian Pig Iron Prices

Declining Pig iron prices in the global market has directly affected Indian prices. India had produced about 7 MnT Pig iron for merchant sales, out of which, 1 MnT was exported last year. Failure of few Pig iron export tender owing to dull global demand had build stock pressure that led to sharp price cuts in past few months. Eventually, the market participants are blaming increase in number of merchant Pig iron manufacturers as one of the major reasons for decline in prices.

Giant Steel manufacturers like SAIL, Jindal Steel and JSW Steel have also started offering Pig iron in the domestic market on a regular basis leading to over supply and price-war in the market.

Pig iron prices in the domestic market have corrected by over INR 500-800/MT M-o-M and INR 2,000-2,500/MT Q-o-Q and it is currently trading in the range of INR 19,000-21,000/MT ex-plant.