Indian Steel Market Highlights, Week 37

In Week-37 (04-09 Sept), Indian Iron & Steel market remain quite uncertain as trade activities were sluggish.

During the week, Semis & long market registered price movement of INR 200-500/MT by medium & small scale manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the large scale producers have raised prices by INR 1,000-1,200/MT for long steel & upto INR 2,000/MT for Flat steel for Sept 2017 deliveries. Rising input cost, strong export orders & costlier imports are the major factors behind price surge by these manufacturers.

Raw Material: Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), a state-owned miner conducted its e-auction for 292,000 MT iron ore fines on 7th Sept’17. The auction was held for Gandhmardhan, Daitari and Koira mines material. Koira mines iron ore fines (Fe 62-60%) were base priced at INR 800/MT and received bids at INR 1,150/MT (ex-mines) a 44% upper booking price.

Indian domestic pellet offers were stable W-o-W except in Kandla was sold higher by INR 300/MT at INR 7,000/MT. For export offers, the highest bid in 3 years was received last week at around USD 121.5/MT, CFR China, equivalent to USD 112-113/MT, FoB India. The growth of USD 7-8/MT against SteelMint’s last week assessment of Indian pellet export prices of USD 114-115/MT, CFR China.

Indian scrap importers remained silent this week as the buyers have inclined towards cheaper domestic scrap due to widened price gap between landed cost of imported and domestic scrap at around USD 25-30/MT. Currently, price assessment for HMS 1&2, Dubai origin are at USD 315/MT, CFR Nhava Sheva. While, domestic HMS (80:20) scrap prices are assessed at INR 21,500-21,700/MT (ex-Mumbai).

Coking Coal: At last, steel makers in China lowered their Coking Coal imports in view of the sky-rocketing prices of the coal in Australia. However, that did not make the coal sellers in Australia to lower their spot prices. In fact, the Australian Coking Coal sellers have further raised their prices as they saw enough room for the demand for coal to remain significantly strong in the near term due to the robust steel making in China as well as in India. Spot prices of the Premium HCC have gone up to around USD 211/MT FoB & USD 223-225/MT CNF India.

Semis Finished Steel: On weekly basis, domestic sponge & billet prices volatile by INR 200-500/MT due to low buying interest by domestic re-rollers.

Indian billet export price assessment increase on recent export tender by a state owned mill for 15,000 MT. Current prices are assessed at USD 525-530/MT FoB against USD 520-525/MT FoB last week.

In the week, India’s largest merchant steel grade pig iron manufacturer had surge the offers by INR 1,000/MT to INR 25,000-25,250/MT (Ex-Mill). SteelMint pig iron export assessment similar against last week at USD 355-365/MT FOB India.

Finish Steel: Rebar offers by medium & small scale plants remained firm with slight fluctuation of INR 300-500/MT. Although, large scale producers have increased Rebar prices by INR 1,000-1,200/MT (USD 15-18).

Further, major Indian steelmakers have increased the flat steel prices by INR 1,500-2,000/MT (USD 23-31) for September bookings over surge in raw material prices and costlier imports. Since rising global export offers lead to costlier imports which provide enough room to the Indian producers to surge the prices in domestic market. On the other hand global steel prices also continues to remain on higher side after Chinese Bengang BF incident resulting in costlier imports.

Indian Raw material and Finished Steel reference Prices as on 09 Sep (Week 37)

Prices are Ex-works, Exclusive of GST at 18%

Indian Export Reference Prices

Source: SteelMint Research