Local Indian hot rolled coil (HRC) trade prices sought lower levels although the pace of decline was slower as the market was seen to be attempting to balance positive outcome from antidumping investigations announced by the Indian government against flat products imports and negative affect of continued rising imports, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Monday, August 26.
Sources said that HRC trade price was down INR 100/mt ($1.2/mt) at INR 50,200/mt ($598/mt) ex-Mumbai and relatively stable at INR 51,000/mt ($608/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
They said that initial estimated information from trade and port arrivals that had started to come in for September, import volumes scheduled to land during the month was around 115,000 mt which confirmed market fears of continued pressures of import on local prices.
However, a section of market participants is maintaining a lot of optimism over early conclusion of antidumping investigations launched by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) and hopes of a favorable tariff barrier to imports eased the declines in trade prices seen over the past week.
“The market is awaiting a new direction depending on the outcome of antidumping investigations. But considering that fundamental demand from industries being very weak and large excess inventories across the supply chain, mere tariff barriers to import is unlikely to support or even reverse the prolonged downtrend,” a Mumbai based distributor told SteelOrbis.
“With mills also considering sharp reductions in export allocations for the next quarter, it is likely that producers will need to continue dropping base price in September to be able to push higher volume sales in the local market,” he added.
$1= INR 83.90