Primary mills, which produce steel through the blast furnace route & contribute about 60% of India’s steel production are soon to declare finished long steel offers for March deliveries. These prices are expected to be hiked, SteelMint learned from its market sources.
The prices are expected to rally by about INR 1,000-1,500/t ($14-21), especially in rebars through the primary mills and the key factors behind this are mentioned below:
Healthy Finished steel export orders – Amidst moderate domestic demand, since the second half of Jan’21, the mills turned towards exports & have good orders for rebars. As per our analysis, around 170,000 t rebars deals have been concluded during Feb’21, for which deliveries are to be made in March-April this year.
Rising scrap & billets prices globally is another major factor as mills have also bagged good volumes of export orders for billets, specially by SAIL, JSPL & RINL.
Price rally by mid-size mills – With significant hike in prices by the Induction grade rebar producers, the price gap has narrowed down to around INR 4,000/t. This seems to influence primary mills to keep prices strong for the coming month. Rebar prices have been increased by INR 2,000-3,000/t by the mid-sized mills, however by primary mills it fell in the same proportion in Feb’21. This has resulted in closing the price gap between the primary & mid-sized mills rebar prices.
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