India: Imported scrap offers fall; buyers turn cautious

Imported scrap offers to India moved down this week, on account of both, slight downtrend in international scrap market as well as recent fall in domestic billet prices and finished steel sales dipping this week, this turning Indian buyers cautious. In comparison to last week, when the market was abuzz with buyers' inquiries and some trades got concluded, this week on the other hand witnessed little buying activity except for the South region.

SteelMint's assessment for Shredded scrap from Europe and North America stand at $ 282-285/t CFR Nhava Sheva, down by at least $5-6/t in comparison to last week, however, very few Shredded deals have concluded throughout this month, with most buyers not finding the prevailing levels viable and instead interested in HMS and other lower grades.

In the South region, few Tamil Nadu buyers concluded HMS 1&2 (80:20) deals at around, $ 260-262/t CFR from Australian origin, with a Chennai based mill concluding 800 t at these price levels this week. Trade sources confided that offers to Chennai are around $ 260-263/t CFR levels. Few deals of LMS bundles to Chennai buyers were concluded at around 243/t CFR basis.

HMS 1&2 (80:20) offers to Nhava Sheva from UK origins, are currently being offered at around $255/t levels, while few suppliers are even ready to conclude at $ 252-253/t level amid low interest from buyers, however, suppliers mentioned that most of these offers include older material. HMS 1&2 (80:20) from West Africa stood at around $ 243-245/t CFR Nhava Sheva, and around $ 250/t CFR Goa.

A few deals of imported turning scrap from Europe were concluded to Maharashtra region buyers at around $227/t CFR. South African HMS 1 offers majorly remained out of market this week, on several permit related issues. Interestingly, as reported earlier for Pakistan, even Indian buyers are freely receiving offers for UAE origin HMS scrap, in spite of the UAE govt's 4-month temporary suspension on scrap export, although the offers remained lower than the present market levels.

Offers to Pakistan witness a drop - As global offers are looking to soften slightly, Shredded 211 scrap, which was being sold at 288-290/t CFR till earlier this week, with offers mostly at $290 levels, have now witnessed a downtrend in recent days and most offers from UK and Europe have come down to $ 285/t CFR Qasim level, as per sources on the supplier and buyer side.