Indian Billet & Sponge Trade Log, 14 Aug

Domestic Semi finished prices moved upwards on 14 Aug’17, post slight price correction during the end of last week. In fresh update billet and sponge offers rose up to INR 300/MT (USD 5); on daily basis.

“As plants are running under limited margins amid less utilisation of production capacity, indicates the prices to remain strong” stated by  well known producer in Central region, Raipur.

For the day, SteelMint’s price assessment for Induction furnace grade billet are reported at INR 26,600-28,700/MT (USD 415-448) and Sponge C-DRI (FeM 78-80) produced through coal route, the offers for material are evaluated at INR 17,600-19,000/MT (USD 274-297) ex-works & excluding of GST at 18%.

Trade Updates

1. According to the trade participants, Integrated plants in Rapur, Central India have sold good quantity of Sponge P-DRI at INR 17,200-17,300/MT on Saturday (12 Aug’17); analysing the same the producers today raise offers by INR 300-400/MT to INR 17,600-17,700/MT. Sponge DR CLO grade offers also increase by INR 300/MT to INR 19,500/MT. Both prices are ex-plant & excluding of GST

2. Big plants in Durgapur, West Bengal increase Sponge & Billet prices by INR 200-300/MT day on day. Today, the offers for the opening hours were reported at – C-DRI at INR 18,300/MT, P-DRI at INR 17,300/MT & for Billet size 100*100 & 125*125 mm at INR 27,300/MT basic & excluding of GST.

3. Odisha, Rourkela based 100-300 TPD Sponge manufacturers kept sponge offers firm; FeM 80 C-DRI mix material are reported at INR 17,400-17,600/MT & for 100% lumps at INR 17,700-18,000/MT ex-plant & excluding of GST. They added, scarcity of material for which dispatches are slowdown.

4. South India, Hyderabad based Hot rolling mill (HRM) owners mentioned, low demand in rebar, meanwhile high cost raw materials like – sponge, scrap & pig iron is forcing them to keep offers on higher side. Sunvik Steels in Bellary, Karnataka have kept their offers unaltered for rebar & sponge since last couple of days amid thin trade activities.

5. In Western India, there is no such major trade activities in Gujarat since couple of days due to Janmashtami festival. However, in Maharashtra (Mumbai & Jalna) the producers have increase billet offers by around INR 300/MT which led to increase in rebar offers.

6. Trade participants are assuming billet prices to gain momentum once rebar demand improves as rebar producers are the major consumer of billets approximately of 60-80% of material.

7. Re-bar exports from India continue to increase owing on narrowing price gap between billets and re-bar in global market. Indian manufactures are heard to have booked few export orders in last couple of weeks at around 505-510/MT FOB India main port. Indian Manufacturers Continue to book Re-bar Export Orders . 

8. India’s crude steel output have increase by 4% on monthly basis to 8.45 MnT in Jul’17 against 8.12 MnT in Jun’17, according to provisional data released by Joint Plant Committee (Govt. of India). While, country’s consumption of finished steel reported decline of 4%, M-o-M in July’17.

Indian sponge & billet reference prices as on 14 August 2017

Basic, ex-works prices & excluding of GST @ 18%
Source: SteelMint Research