BigMint is a Market Intelligence and Price Reporting firm that caters to the data and analytics requirements of businesses in the commodities sector. It publishes real time prices and information, which is impartial, independent and reliable, sourced from all industry interfaces – sellers, buyers, agents and traders. This data is filtered and passed through very stringent, calculative assessments before final prices are derived, thereby giving our clients accurate pricing.

Go to List

Indian HRC export offers on hold, mills focus on domestic market

...

Finish Flat

BigMint Bureau

273 Reads

2 Jul 2024, 19:07 IST

Indian HRC export offers on hold, mills focus on domestic market

Vietnam's Hoa Phat reduces HRC prices by $10/t

Chinese SHFE HRC futures tick up w-o-w

Indian hot-rolled coil (HRC) export offers to Southeast Asia and the Middle East (ME) continued to remain on hold as mills are focused on the domestic market. In addition, market participants are awaiting domestic price announcements by mills for July 2024 sales. While Chinese prices are still on the lower side, subdued global market demand has further kept Indian mills away from exports. With summers approaching, in the ME and European Union (EU), trade activities remained limited.

Market updates:

1. ME imported HRC offers stable w-o-w: Imported HRC offers to the ME remained stable at $555-560/t CFR UAE in a recent deal. A deal of around 15,000 tonnes (t) was heard concluded at $555/t CFR UAE for August shipment, informed a ME-based source. "The current market is facing challenges due to increased shipping costs and softening demand", said a market participant. Offers from South Korea are hovering around $590-600/t CFR UAE. No offers have been heard from Japan and India. "Japan's mills will start accepting orders from July end for October shipment," sources informed BigMint.

2. Import offers for Vietnam decline: Imported offers of China-origin HRC (SAE1006) into Vietnam fell by $10/t w-o-w to $530-5355/t CFR HCMC against $540-545/t CFR HCMC a week ago, sources informed. In addition, Vietnam's steel major Hoa Phat has reduced its monthly HRC (SAE1006, non-skinpassed) prices by around $10/t for August and September sales. Post-revision, effective prices stand at $555/t or VND 14,100,000/t for the southern region, excluding VAT. The company has decided to reduce prices amid softening domestic demand and declining import offers from China.

3. Indian mills continue to hold HRC offers to the EU: Indian steel mills continued to hold their HRC export offers (S275, 3mm) to the EU this week. The EU HRC market remains oversupplied with persistently weak demand, driving down prices. Trading activity is expected to stay subdued throughout the summer. A potential market improvement could occur in the third quarter as the impact of new EU import safeguards for steel becomes evident.

Outlook

Subdued global demand, lower Chinese prices, and upcoming summer slowdowns in key markets like the EU and ME may continue to dampen export prospects. However, China's SHFE HRC futures increased by RMB 34/t w-o-w to RMB 3,764/t ($518/t) against RMB 3,730/t ($513/t) a week ago. Furthermore, the upcoming announcement of domestic prices for July sales in India will be a key indicator of the future course of the export market, too.