Indian sponge exports remain weak over high offers. Bangladesh which is the biggest buyer of Indian made DRI is presently Importing Scrap instead of high cost DRI.
India is the world’s largest sponge iron producer & exporter. In FY17, the country exported about 260,000 MT DRI to Bangladesh from the total exports of 340,200 MT. Bangladesh Sponge import from India has declined in the past two weeks.
According to SteelMint analysis, in the start of July 2017, sponge export offers having Sulphur+Phosphorus 0.10-0.12 & carbon max at 0.11-0.12% was to Bangladesh at USD 280-290/MT CPT Benapole port.However, the fresh export offers for same grade material are reported at USD 300-310/MT CPT Benapole port, Bangladesh. Whereas HMS Scrap (80:20) offers from Europe are evaluated at around USD 315/MT CNF Bangladesh.
The offer prices of sponge is running neck to neck with offer prices of scrap, buyers are more interested in buying scrap in place of sponge as the prices are almost same and scrap would provide better extraction of steel.
In FY17 India’s coal based sponge iron production increased by approximately 6.5 per cent, to 24.39 (FY17) compared to 22.93 MnT (FY16).
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