Major Steel companies in India have raised their prices for certain products in January & February. Tata Steel raised its prices by Rs 1,000/MT in February,
Group Chief Financial Officer Koushik Chatterjee said to Bloomberg without
giving a percentage gain. Prices are also rising in the U.S. and demand in Europe
is improving, he added.
Steel Authority of India Ltd., the nation's second-largest
producer, also increased it ex-factory base prices of some of its products by
as much as 3.9 percent, effective Feb. 1.
Going forward, Steel prices in India may extend gains in the
next few months after rising in January, partly because exporters in China are
forecast to increase prices, MEPS (International) Ltd., a U.K.-based industry
consultant, said in a Feb. 2 report.
Demand for the alloy is expected to improve should India's
central bank lower interest rates, said Tata Steel's Managing Director H.M.
Nerurkar in Mumbai.
A decline in the prices of iron ore and coking coal and a
pick-up in construction in India will boost the demand for the alloy, said
Deven Choksey, managing director at Mumbai-based brokerage K.R. Choksey Shares
& Securities Pvt.
The cost of iron ore at China's Tianjin port has slid about
20 percent to $142.80 a ton since September, while quarterly contracted prices
for coking coal have slid 17 percent to $235 a ton from the previous quarter,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Source: Bloomberg
Leave a Reply