Indian Billet Export Deals to Nepal Regain Momentum in Recent Deals by Primary Mills

Indian primary mills in eastern India who produce billet through the blast furnace route claimed healthy demand from Nepal mills.

As per SteelMint's conversation with an official, about five rakes, equivalent to 14,000 MT of billet export deals to Nepal for Feb deliveries have been concluded in last 7-10 days.

In context to price range, the average deal price has been reported at around USD 435/MT loaded to rake, thus landed cost to Nepal would be around USD 455/MT CPT Raxaul/Jogbani border.

As per him, following the rally in Indian secondary billet prices, the major buyers in Nepal are more inclined towards premium grade billets, thus, strengthening the demand for billet exports.

Further, he indicated that the offers in coming month are likely to increase as there could be limited availability of material for domestic & export deliveries. Thus, to match supply-demand scenario, the prices may rise in Feb in order to take advantage of improved demand.

However, there are no fresh export offers for wire rod by large scale mills due to better margins in domestic trade along with healthy orders in hand. Meanwhile, last export deals to Nepal for 2-3 rakes were reported at around USD 520/MT CPT Nepal, during the 1st half of Jan'20. The current realization in Indian domestic trade for wire rod is assessed at around INR 37,000-38,000/MT, equivalent to USD 520-535/MT ex-works & excluding GST.

Inline with this, the secondary mills' export offers (via road delivery) for 100*100mm billet (induction grade) assessed at around USD 445/MT and USD 505/MT for Wire rod (commercial grade), CPT Nepal.