Indian sponge iron export offers noticed an upward movement this week on fresh buying from Bangladesh based steel mills. Export offers have increased by USD 5-10/MT this week. Current offers for 80 FeM sponge lumps are being assessed at around USD 320/MT CPT Benapole (land port of Bangladesh and India).
SteelMint learned from market sources that export prices have increased in line with rising imported and domestic offers in Bangladesh.
Notably, imported scrap offers have increased USD 40-50/MT in last one one month and currently hovering at USD 360-365/MT for shredded , USD 340-345/MT for HMS and USD 365-370/MT for PnS CFR Chittagong (Bangladesh) basis.
“Steel mills are not buying imported scrap at the moment owing to higher prices. Most of them are relying on domestic scrap, which has pushed domestic scrap prices as well. Indian sponge iron demand has increased in last few days owing to rising price gap between sponge iron and imported scrap. At the same time high congestion at Chittagong port is restricting containerised scrap imports in the country “said a local Indenter based in Dhaka.
Few deals of 3,000-5,000 MT were reported at USD 320/MT CPT Benapole last week.
During Jan-May’17 the DRl exports from India was recorded at 210,000 MT. Bangladesh remained the favourable destination during the period as it procured approximately of 44.31% (0.09 MnT) material.
