India: JSW Steel tops steel exports charts in 2021

JSW Steel (along with its acquired companies Monnet Ispat and Bhushan Power and Steel) led the Indian steel exports show in 2021 with a 35% share in the total volume of 20.44 million tonnes (mnt).

Data maintained with SteelMint reveals that India's top six primary mills retained their previous year's positions in 2021.

JSW Steel's provisional export volumes last calendar year were at 7.14 mnt, a 79% increase from 4 mnt in 2020. It may be mentioned that BPSL's contributions particularly boosted JSW Steel's exports in 2021. In 2020, BPSL's exports were at 0.24 mnt which shot up to 0.78 mnt in 2021.

Tata Steel followed in second position with 12% share in India's total steel exports in 2021. However, its volumes dropped 39% to 2.45 mnt y-o-y.

AM/NS India stood third with 10% share at 2.15 mnt. Its volumes grew 60% y-o-y. JSPL took the fourth rank, at 2.10 mnt, a 9% y-o-y growth.

The two PSU majors, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) took the fifth and six positions with 7.40% and 6.60% share respectively. While SAIL's export volumes showed a 22% y-o-y drop at 1.51 mnt, RINL's volumes too dipped marginally over 2020 at 1.35 mnt.

It may be mentioned that SteelMint had correctly forecasted earlier in Jan'22 that India's steel exports in 2021 would rise by around 16% to around 20 mnt.

Key importers
The main steel exports destinations over the last three years tracked by SteelMint shows that European Union (EU), neighbouring Nepal, and Vietnam and China were the top four importers of Indian steel.

Flat steel's export share highest
Amongst the three export segments, finished flats' share was the highest in 2021, at 12.40 mnt, a 25% y-o-y increase. Finished longs spurted by 140% but the volumes were at 2.40 mnt. Billets exports amounted to 5.6 mnt, a y-o-y drop of 14%.

Reasons for flat steel's leading share

• Europe was a major buyer: Exports to the EU, a major flat steel market, spurted by a whopping 167% to 6.10 mnt in 2021 against 2.28 mnt in 2020 as it opened up after the 2020 lockdown, followed by an economic revival. Indian mills exhausted their European quotas in the first five months of 2021.
  
  
• China's export rebate withdrawal: Chinese steel became less competitive with the withdrawal of the export rebates in phases, starting from May last year. The move covered HR and CR coils, galvanized and other items and offered Indian mills opportunities to expand into markets like Turkey and South Africa.
  
  
• Russian export duty: The Russian government slapped a 15% export duty but a minimum of $54/t on all steel products over Aug-Dec'21. This translated into $115/t for HR products and rebar and $133/t for CR products. Russia is the third-largest steel exporter. This export disincentive also created opportunities for Indian mills.
  
  

What lies ahead?
China is a key factor that influences India's exports movements. It has taken an official stand of exporting value-added steel. However, as per market hearsay, some amount of commercial grades may get exported as its crude steel production may increase in the first half of 2022, post-the Lunar New Year holidays and Winter Olympics. The country reopened its export allocations from 6 Jan'22. A source hinted that Chinese mills have already been making offers of API grades in the Middle East markets.

On the other hand, exports from India have picked up of late, mainly on restocking demand from China ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays starting 1 Feb'22.

Around 250,000 tonnes of export bookings have been made. Some HRC shipments for Europe, Egypt and Turkey were confirmed in the last fortnight.

Indian mills have also seen some activity from Vietnam buyers who had been unable to purchase till early January because of Covid-related curbs and thus were short of inventory. They have returned to the market. Additionally, 90,000 t of billets were booked last week.

These deals indicate that the bookings momentum may sustain next month and February's export figures may be higher m-o-m.