Earlier this week, local mills raised prices of hot-rolled coils by ₹1,500-2,000 per tonne, following a similar hike that was taken last month, dealers said. Steel prices are, in fact, 8-10% higher from the lows of January-end.
While some of these gains were in anticipation of a safeguard duty being announced, prices have continued to strengthen even after the proposal to implement a 12% protectionist duty.
The import of bulk hot-rolled coils in March, meanwhile, fell 18% as compared to last year and was down 26% as compared to February, data from BigMint showed. India imported 297,505 tonnes of steel in March, down from more than 400,000 tonnes each in January and February.
The imports are also the lowest since September 2023.
Imports typically take about 6-8 weeks to land into India after they are booked and the recent uptick in prices of steel in the domestic market has brought the cost of imports on a par with prices in the domestic market. This could limit the headroom for steel players to take on further hikes from the current levels.”If Chinese steel prices go up, then Indian steel mills will have some room to increase prices,” said Aditya Welekar, analyst at Axis Securities.
“But that scenario, I don’t see in the current atmosphere.”
While there could be some knee-jerk reaction of the tariffs for a few weeks, steelmakers are seen faring better than their global peers.
