India Steel Market Watch
October 28: HRC offers declined marginally on low buying owing to the festive season in most parts of the country, industry sources said.
Low liquidity levels during the festive season also impacted prices, sources said.
Some trade sources said offers from China were reduced further to $295 per ton CFR Mumbai following the imposition of the 20% safeguard duty on hot rolled coils.
The duty was imposed with immediate effect on hot-rolled flat products of non-alloy and other alloy steels, in coils of width of 600 mm or more.
Earlier, major steel producers had raised prices of flat steel products, taking advantage of the 20% safeguard duty imposed on hot rolled (HR) coils. Steel Authority of India (SAIL), has raised prices of flat steel products like HR coils by Rs 700 per ton. Essar Steel also raised prices by Rs 500 per ton on its range of flat products with immediate effect.
Analysts were surprised by the timing of the hike since the steel market remained lacklustre and the price increase came close on the heels of the safeguard duty.
Reacting to the price hike, a sizeable section of steel users has called for imposition of a 20% anti-dumping duty on finished steel products to counter the 20% provisional safeguard duty on hot rolled coils, a key raw material for value-added steel products like seamless tubes and pipes, engineering and fabrication as well as the auto sector.
Sources said Chinese and Russian exporters have factored in the 20% provisional safeguard duty in their offers.
Some sources said the safeguard duty would help steel mills increase capacity utilisation levels rather than raising prices too much.
In the April-August period of 2015-16, India’s imports of non-alloy flat steel rose 50.4% year-on-year to 3.26 million tons from 2.17 million tons in the same period last year, provisional steel ministry data showed.
Imports of HR coils rose 131.1% to 1.52 million tons during the period, while imports of plates rose 59.1% to 483,400 tons during the April-August period.
GP/GC sheet and coil imports rose 36.6%, while CR coil/sheet imports rose 11% during the period.
$1=Rs 65.04