I. Competitive offers of iron ore lump in eastern India have kept domestic pellet prices to register downtrend. Eastern India pellet offers remained subdued. Durgapur pellet prices have experienced further decline Moreover, offers from major pellet makers of Barbil, Jamshedpur have slashed offers this week.
II. As per market sources, Indian HRC import offers fell from South Korea for February shipments in recent deal concluded. As per market sources, India based stockiest booked around 20,000 MT HRC from South Korea at USD 525-530/MT CFR basis for February shipments. Prior to this, last offers of HRC from South Korea for Indian mills
were around USD 565/MT CFR India for Dec shipments.
III. As per market sources, major Indian steel manufacturer have reduced its HRC export offers to Nepal. Market participants shared that a major private Indian steel manufacturer has concluded HRC export deal for about 3 rakes at USD 525/MT CFR Raxaul border for January end or early February shipments.
IV. Iran remained one of the largest billet exporter in world has exported around 5.90 MnT during CY’18 (Jan-Dec’18), registered a growth of 18% Y-o-Y against 5 MnT exported in CY’17. South East Asian countries were the largest importers of Iranian billet during the period.
V. China’s finished steel exports declined by 8% Y-o-Y to 69.47 MnT in CY18 as compared to 75.41 MnT in CY17. Chinese mills raised export offers following gains in domestic market during Jan-Sept’18.
VI. South Korea has imported about 2.13 MnT finish long steel in 2018, which is low since 2013. Prior to this it remained in the range between 3 and 3.5 MnT each year.
VII. The slab export made by Brazil declined by 5.87% to 7,210,966 MT CY’18 from 7,660,334 MT in CY17. Further, in CY17 (Jan-Dec) the Slab export rise by 22.62% as against 6,247,093 MT in 2016.
