SteelMint: India Steel Composite Index edges up as major mills announce price hikes

SteelMint's India Steel Composite Index continued to rise for the third consecutive week, inching up by 3% w-o-w, as the long and flat steel indices rose after the major steel producers announced a hike in prices for early-Feb'22 sales. The index was assessed at 163.4 on 28 Jan, up 6% on a monthly basis.

The Index is backed by robust calculation methodologies and is derived from the long steel and flat steel composite indices. It serves as a benchmark for end-users, EPC contractors, and manufacturers in the iron and steel industry to settle contracts or understand the market cost of physical supply of commodities such as rebar, wire rod, structurals, HRC, CRC, plates as well as galvanised plates.

• • The Composite Index is assessed on a weekly basis: every Friday at 18:30 IST, as per the weighted average prices based on manufacturing capacity and production.
    
    
  • SteelMint considers the Composite Index with the base year being 3 Jan'20 (financial year 2019-2020) and the base value as 100.
    
    
  • The Composite Index doesn't give the absolute price.
    
    
  • The Indian steel industry is broadly classified into the BF-BOF and the electric/induction furnace routes. Keeping this broad classification in view, SteelMint proposes to release the Composite Index by considering both production routes by manufacturing capacity and the production weighted method to compute the index for India. For details click to view the methodology document.
    
    
  
  
  

The flat steel index stood at 171.7, rising from 168.4 a week ago. AM/NS India raised its list prices of flat steel products by INR 1,000-2,000/t, while a hike of INR 1,500/t was announced by JSW Steel for galvanised plain coil (GPC) for early-Feb despatches. Also, JSPL took a hike of INR 3,000/t in its list prices for plates earlier this week. This has pushed the trade-level prices higher in key markets.

Increase in global prices of flat products coupled with the rising costs of coating and other raw materials were pointed out as the major factors behind the hike.

The long steel index increased to 155.5 this week against 150.8 last week. Market sentiments have improved with a pick up in trading activities. A few major blast furnace (BF) route steel producers increased their list prices by around INR 1,000-3,000/t this week citing firm demand and soaring raw material prices. The induction furnace-based long steel market demand remained moderate because of need-based procurement at elevated prices.