The risk of disruptions related to supply-chain movements is preventing prices from reaching pre-Covid averages of $180 per tonne.

However, the extent of weather disruption in Australia and China resuming Australian coking coal imports amid the lifting of the unofficial ban will remain key monitorables. Annualised coking coal prices will decline 20 percent to $250-275 per tonne in fiscal 2024.

Prices will pick up only from the third quarter of fiscal 2024 when Australia’s cyclone season sets in. The prices are expected to fall further as Australian exports pick up on account of demand cooling in India and China with the onset of monsoons. Overall, long steel prices are set to decline 3-5 percent this fiscal after rising 4 percent in the previous one amid a fall in input prices and a steep correction in secondary TMT prices, in line with cooling thermal coal prices.Ĭoking coal prices fell to $240–245 per tonne in mid-May 2023 after reaching highs of $400 per tonne in mid-February 2023. Primary long steel (TMT), which is not influenced by import prices on account of its minuscule trades, will see a sharper correction in prices. The upshot: annualised flat steel prices (HRC) will fall 2-3 percent on-year in fiscal 2024 after declining ~9 percent in the previous fiscal. End-consumer industries have switched to need-based procurement in anticipation of further price corrections. Meanwhile, primary thermo-mechanically treated (TMT) trade prices saw a steeper fall of Rs 2,800 and are currently trading at Rs 57,000–57,500. Following a flurry of cheap imports, most large steel mills corrected list prices for both HRC and CRC by Rs 2,000-2,500 per tonne in early May against April 2023 prices. Domestic hot-rolled coil (HRC) and cold-rolled coil (CRC) trade prices fell by Rs 2,000 in mid-May 2023 from the peaks of the previous month to Rs 59,000–59,500 per tonne and Rs 63,000–63,500 per tonne, respectively, in the Mumbai market. Domestic steel prices, which have been on a rally since December 2022, are set to bend under the combined weight of a slowdown in global demand, influx of cheap imports from far-eastern Asia and Russia and cooling raw material prices.

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