Indian Sponge Iron Export Offers Fall by USD 10/MT

Indian sponge iron export offers correct by USD 10/MT according to SteelMint’s weekly price assessment. The prices fell due to couple of reasons- One is depreciating Indian Rupee against US Dollar, which has depreciated by 2% in last few days and second is falling imported scrap offers which in turn led to low inquiries for Indian DRI.

Also, according to the suppliers, present availability of sponge iron is enough with Bangladesh smelters, hence they are not willing to book material and are looking for further price corrections to take position.

SteelMint’s current week price assessment for 80 FeM sponge lumps are at around USD 320-325/MT CPT Benapole (land port of Bangladesh and India) against last week’s assessment of USD 330-335/MT.

The buying interest seen lower by USD 10-15/MT than the offer prices, a sponge iron trader based in eastern region reported.

A steel mill based in Chittagong, Bangladesh also confirmed sponge offers from Indian suppliers at around USD 320-325/MT CPT Benapole and around USD 340-345/MT CFR Chittagong (in containers).

Imported scrap offers remain downtrend and are evaluated at around USD 305-310/MT for HMS & USD 325-330/MT for Shredded, CFR Chittagong (Bangladesh) basis.

Domestic Steel Prices Surge in Bangladesh

SteelMint learned from Bangladesh based sources that local steel mills in the country have raised their prices due to rising local ship breaking scrap prices and shortage of imported melting scrap due to high congestion at ports.

Rebar offers (12 mm) by local mills are reported at 54,000-56,000/MT Bangladesh Taka (USD 655-680) and billet at 48,000-50,000/MT Bangladesh Taka (USD 584-608). Domestic ship cutting plate prices are reported at 35,000-36,000 Bangladesh Taka (USD 425-438). The all prices increase by around 2,000-3,000/MT Bangladesh Taka (USD 24-37) in the last couple of weeks.

Reference Prices as on 04 Oct 2017

Source: SteelMint Research