Indian sponge iron export offers increased by USD 5/MT, according to SteelMint’s weekly price assessment.
Rising domestic sponge & global scrap prices led to support Indian sponge iron export offers. In a week duration global scrap offers surge about USD 10/MT and domestic sponge prices by INR 500-700/MT (USD 8-10).
SteelMint’s current week price assessment for 80 FeM sponge lumps are at around USD 383-385/MT CPT Benapole (land port of Bangladesh and India) against last week’s assessment of USD 378-380/MT. On CFR basis the latest offers are at around USD 400/MT, CFR Chittagong, Bangladesh.
A producer source based in Odisha stated “offers have increased on rising domestic prices. Last week, few deals have been concluded at USD 379-382/MT and in current week offers hovering at USD 385/MT, CPT Benpole. Bangladesh based mills are active as scrap offers continue to gain,” he added.
Another large supplier from Eastern region of India mentioned, buying interest is at USD 380-382/MT but we are not looking at below USD 385/MT because of healthy domestic inquiries and coupled with strong global trends and lessen inventories.
Sponge Iron Exports Boost
India’s sponge exports robust during calendar year 2017 on monthly and yearly premises. According to custom data maintained by SteelMint, India has exported about 480,000 MT Sponge iron (DRI) during Jan-Nov 2017 against 260,000 MT in the same period last year, increased by 85% on yearly premises.
Similarly on monthly basis, sponge iron exports boost in Nov 2017 and are recorded highest at 90,000 MT which was in the range of 30,000-60,000 MT in rest of month’s 2017 (Jan to Oct).
Bangladesh remained the largest importer of Indian sponge iron exports in 2017 (Jan-Nov), imported about (48.61%) followed by Nepal (11.22%), Indonesia (8.06%) and Bhutan & Thailand, each about 7%.
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