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India: BF-route rebar trade prices rise w-o-w as mills announce interim price hike

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BigMint Bureau

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12 Apr 2024, 18:57 IST

India: BF-route rebar trade prices rise w-o-w as mills announce interim price hike

IF rebar prices drop marginally

National Highway construction rises 12% y-o-y

Trade-level prices of blast furnace (BF) rebars witnessed an uptick across markets as some mills announced interim price hike of INR 500-1,000/t ($6-12/t) during the week. Although demand in the traders' market remained subdued, which weighed on the market sentiments. Furthermore, mills have been mulling for production cut of 70,000-80,000 t of rebars this month owing to shut down as per market sources.

Trade-level blast furnace (BF) rebar prices edged upwards by INR 100/t ($1/t) w-o-w to INR 53,500/t ($641/t) exy-Mumbai as per BigMint's assessment on 12 April, 2024. In the projects segment, prices rose w-o-w and were hovering around INR 52,000-52,500/t ($623-629/t) FOR Mumbai owing to good demand from end users ahead of general elections.

Market dynamics:

1. IF rebar prices drop w-o-w: Trade prices of Induction Furnace (IF) rebars dropped w-o-w across markets as adequate bookings were seen in last two weeks, this week trade activities were limited amid holidays observed during the week. Manufacturers reduced their prices due to disparity between bids and offers and inventory levels are minimum as lifting of previously booked material is going on currently. Furthermore, IF-rebar prices are likely to remain range-bound in near term. Current IF-rebar prices were assessed at INR 49,800/t ($597/t) exw-Mumbai as on 12 April 2024. It must be noted that IF-based mills command 65-70% share in rebar market.

The gap between BF-IF rebars widened to INR 3,500-4,000/t ($42-48/t) this month as compared with INR 2,500-3,000/t ($30-36/t) in the previous month. The tapering price gap between the two was the prime reason behind the hike in rebar prices by tier-1 mills.

2. Infrastructure, construction demand: India's national highway construction rose 12% on the year totaling to 12,349 km in FY24 as against 10,993 km in the same period last year, as per the data from Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).