State-owned Steel Authority of India Limited (Sail) is exporting cast slabs to China from its Bhilai unit. The plant Steel Melting Shop-2 which supplies cast blooms for rails, structural and plate mills is now catering to the exports market amid weak domestic demand.
Bhilai plant received an export order of 30,000mt of cast slabs of grade JS- SS400 on May 21. The plant produced 10,232mt of cast slabs in May mainly for the overseas markets.
The company will continue to produce and dispatch cast slabs to overseas market in June 2020 and has produced till-date about 24,000mt of cast slabs for these market. Shortage of rakes due to restriction rake movement at Vizag port is one of the challenges faced by the company
Besides, it also exported over 40,000mt of cast billets of size 150*150mm to China and other Asian countries during April and May from Steel Melting Shop 3 (SMS-3). It had begun dispatch of 20,000mt for the same size billet. The company has exported around 44,500mt of same size billet to China since April. The company has received two new orders of 10,000mt and another 5,000mt of 105*105mm cast billets for the export market.
Davis Index has also heard a steel mill received an export order of 20,000mt billet for the Philippines in the week. The deal is expected at $400-405/mt fob India which is up by $15-20/mt from the previous month.
Indian primary steelmakers are aggressively selling steel in the overseas markets following subdued demand due to the COVID–19 pandemic and a large chunk of these exports are into China.