Indian steel mills increased inquiries for imported ferrous scrap on Tuesday. Offers jumped by $5-10/mt as suppliers remained bullish about price trends in the coming days. Imported scrap offers have scaled to a 16-month high as domestic billet and scrap prices reach an 18-month high.
Firm demand from downstream industries and a faster-than-expected recovery in India’s steel sector is driving mills to restock scrap aggressively. In the domestic market, major rebar makers have announced price hikes of Rs1,500-2,000/mt ($20-27/mt) for November shipments. This has encouraged buyers to book scrap despite high offers.
The Davis Index for containerized shredded on Tuesday settled at $324.5/mt cfr Nhava Sheva, up by $0.86/mt from Monday. Trades for shredded were at $323-325/mt cfr Nhava Sheva. Alloy makers continued to buy shredded amid limited inventories in hand. Offers for imported scrap jumped to $330-335/mt cfr Nhava Sheva as Bangladeshi mills returned into the containers market and were willing to compete with Indian buyers.
Suppliers from the UAE preferred Indian buyers over Pakistan. The daily Davis Index for HMS 1&2 (80:20) from UAE, Tuesday, was at $314/mt cfr Nhava Sheva, up by $1/mt, with few trades reported at the index price. Trades for containerized #1 HMS without the cast and galvanized iron from Dubai were at prices above $315-320/mt cfr Nhava Sheva.
The Davis Index for US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) inched up by $1.39/mt to $315.14/mt cfr Nhava Sheva on Tuesday as trades picked up. Suppliers are offering bulk cargoes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $325-330/mt cfr Kandla, but buyers showed limited interest at these price levels. A few bulk suppliers stayed away from trades amid uncertainty around the US presidential election results. With the possibility of Democrat candidate Biden winning the elections, the fear around imposition of sanctions on Turkish materials worried market participants.
In the bulk market, US west coast suppliers kept offers firm due to indications of price rise in South Korea and Bangladesh. Taiwanese mills also increased their bids by $10/mt from the prior week.
In the northern part of India, many importers are still waiting for normalization of rail services to get their containers delivered. A few preferred domestic scrap as a stopgap measure, but volumes remain limited. Mills have urged the state governments to resume rail services from Mundra port to Punjab route.
Subcontinent
Improved trades and a shortage of containers lifted subcontinent indexes on Tuesday. The daily Davis Index for containerized shredded, Tuesday, settled at $322.61/mt cfr India subcontinent, up by $0.60/mt from Tuesday. The daily Davis Index for containerized US-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) was at $312.54/mt cfr India subcontinent, up by $1.56/mt.
($1=Rs74.38)