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India: Tier-1 mills cut rebar list prices m-o-m for early-April sales

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BigMint Bureau

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5 Apr 2023, 17:53 IST

India: Tier-1 mills cut rebar list prices m-o-m for early-April sales

Indian Tier-1 mills have cut rebar list prices m-o-m for early-April 2023 sales, sources informed SteelMint. It shall be noted that mills have given rebates and discounts last month due to sluggish sales in the domestic market. In early Mar'23, SteelMint reported that rebar list prices were in the range of INR 63,000-64,000/t ($768-781/t).

JSW Steel:
Rebars (12-32mm, IS1786): INR 60,500/t ($738/t), landed Mumbai
Wire rods (5.5-6mm, SAE1008): INR 60,500/t ($738/t), landed Mumbai

Jindal Steel & Power Limited (JSPL):
Rebars (12-32mm, IS1786): INR 61,000/t ($744/t), landed Delhi
Wire rods (5.5-6mm, SAE1008): INR 60,000/t ($731/t), landed Delhi

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL):
Rebars (12-32mm, IS1786): INR 60,000/t ($731/t), landed Mumbai
Wire rods (5.5-6mm, SAE1008): INR 59,600/t ($727/t), landed Mumbai

Prices are excluding GST at 18%.

Factors behind decline in prices:

1. Sluggish demand in trade market: Buying interest in the trade channel network remained sluggish with limited enquiries amid festivals like Holi, Navratri and Ugadi coupled with challenges of liquidity issues. These factors led to delay in credit collection, hinted some distributors. Trade prices dropped by around INR 1,800/t ($22/t) to INR 61,200/t ($744/t) m-o-m in March against INR 63,000/t ($766/t) in February.

Demand from projects segment also remained slow amid decent inventory levels maintained by major players. Hence, rebar inventory levels with mills witnessed an increase in March, resulting in price correction.

2. BF-IF price gap narrows: Trade prices of IF-route rebars remained unchanged during the week due to slow buying interest in key markets. Prices were assessed at INR 55,500/t ($675/t), exw-Mumbai as on 5 April 2023. The same registered a drop of INR 1,000/t ($12/t) m-o-m to a monthly average of INR 56,000/t ($681/t) in March as against INR 57,000/t ($693/t) a month ago. IF route rebars enjoyed a domestic market share of around 65-70%, as per SteelMint's assessment.

The gap between BF-IF route rebar prices narrowed down by around INR 1,000/t ($12/t) m-o-m to INR 5,000-5,500/t ($61-67/t) in March as against INR 6,000-6,500/t ($73-79/t) last month in the Mumbai market.

3. Raw material prices show mixed trend: Prices of iron ore remained stable. Meanwhile, coking coal prices dropped w-o-w.

SteelMint's weekly Odisha iron ore fines Fe 63% index remained unchanged w-o-w at INR 6,000/t ($73/t) ex-mines as on 1 April, 2023.

Furthermore, India's largest merchant iron ore mining company, NMDC, increased list prices of iron ore fines by INR 200/t ($2/t) with effect from 21 March. The miner has fixed prices for DR CLO (Fe 67%, 10-40mm) at INR 5,820/t ($71/t) and iron fines (64% - 10mm) at INR 4,110/t ($50/t) (FOR prices from Bacheli complex, excluding royalty, DMF and NMET).

On the other hand, Australian premium hard coking coal (HCC) prices fell by $21/t to weekly average of $333/t CNF India for the week ended 1 April compared with $354/t in the week ago period.