In July, India’s billet and slab exports surged to 923,000mt, up by 584pc from the year prior, according to government data. Exports, however, were marginally down by 7pc compared to June 2020.
In Apr- July 2020 period, billet and slabs exports increased by 410pc to 3.2 mn mt from the year prior. China imported the highest volume of billets from India at 2.212 mn mt, followed by Nepal at 194,000mt, Thailand 194,000mt, Indonesia 126,000mt and Italy 83,000mt.
Indian mills were quite active in export since starting of the current fiscal year 2020-21 till July as demand was strong from the Chinese market. However, are again refocusing on the domestic market as demands is here is improving. Domestic steel prices also picked up since late July by Rs3,000-3,500/mt and expecting hike in prices in early September.
Indian billet export offers were at $420-425/mt FoB India, but no deals were reported at those prices. In Mumbai, the daily Davis Index for billet on Wednesday was at Rs30,650/mt ($412.73/mt) ex-works .
| India’s billet and slabs exports | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Unit: mt) | July 2020 | July 2019 | Y-o-Y | Apr-July 2020 | Apr-July 2019 | Y-o-Y |
| Billet & slab | 923,000 | 135,000 | 584% | 3200,000 | 628,000 | 410% |
($1= Rs74.33)