Finished steel export volumes from India dropped by 22% m-o-m in Oct ’21, SteelMint learned from the provisional data released by Joint Plant Committee (JPC). The volumes stood at 1.055 million tonnes (mn t) in Oct’21. Slow demand from the traditional export markets and competitive offers from other exporting nations continued to keep demand low for the Indian-origin steel products.
For instance, the HRC export offers to Vietnam remained consistently high as mills continued increasing prices in the domestic market. Indian mills continued to offer HRCs (SAE 2006) for exports at $890-910/t CFR Vietnam for most of September and October, . Russian mills, on the other hand, concluded export deals in the range of $840-865/t CFR basis.
Also, most of the overseas markets remained in wait-and-watch mode because of the turmoil in China, the largest producer and exporter of steel.
On an annual basis, the export volumes went up by a massive 90% against Oct’20’s levels. This increment was due to higher global trade activities this year compared to the previous year, when Covid had led to lockdowns at a global level.
Crude steel production up marginally m-o-m
Crude steel production of the Indian steel majors increased by around 2% both m-o-m and y-o-y in Oct ’21 to 9.751 mn t.
The incremental production came with the addition of new capacities in Q1FY’22 (April-June) and subsequent increase in capacity utilisation rates by mills led to this rise in volumes.
In the first 7MFY’22 (April-October), volumes grew by 25% against CPLY to 66.910 mn t. The nation-wide lockdown from April till mid-July last year had dented production volumes as mills were forced to reduce production capacity significantly amid labour shortage and stringent social distancing norms.
Finished steel production flat m-o-m
Finished steel production volumes remained largely stable at 9.031 mn t in Oct ’21, as against 9.032 mn t a month back. However, the same was down by 1% y-o-y.
Slow demand revival from most of the steel-consuming segments has remained a major challenge for the mills since Jan ’21.
The cumulative production volumes stood at around 62.373 mn t in 7MFY’22, up by 29% against CPLY.
Finished steel imports decline 8% m-o-m in Oct
Finished steel import volumes took an 8% dip to 0.387 mn t in Oct ’21 compared to September. Slower demand and major focus on the Make in India initiative, coupled with volatile global markets kept the import volumes low. Also, turmoil in export offers due to the Chinese government intervening to check the futures market speculations in coal and ferrous products kept most of the markets across the globe observant on the import front.
However, finished steel imports were up 4% y-o-y . In similar lines, cumulative import volumes in 7MFY’22 grew by 17% to 2.751 mn t.
Consumption dropped 12% m-o-m in Oct
Domestic consumption took a blow from the persistent higher prices and reduced procurement rates of major steel consuming segments in recent months. The volumes fell by 12% m-o-m to 8.281 mn t in Oct ’21. Furthermore, the issues around chip shortages had a crippling effect on auto giants and white goods manufacturers, impacting the demand.
On a yearly note the same increased by a marginal 2% but jumped 25% to 57.395 mn t in 7MFY’22.
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