Steel companies may raise prices

27 Mar 2007

New Delhi: Steel companies may raise steel prices due to a supply-demand mismatch that has developed in select steel products during the past few weeks. Steel makers had increased the prices immediately after the Budget and had later rolled them back following the intervention of the Finance minister, P Chidambaram.

Primary steel manufacturing industry sources said there were shortages ranging between 10 and 15 per cent in heavy plates that are 16-cm thick or more, there is almost a 15 per cent short supply in the Northern region. And given the weight, their imports are also expensive said officials in steel companies.

These heavy plates are mostly used in the manufacture of heavy machineries such as dredgers, excavators, mining machineries, army tanks and power equipment. They are also extensively used in the Metro railway construction, company officials said.

Current supplies are also also 10 to 15 per cent lower than demand in hot-rolled coils of width 2mm and less. The third group of steel products where a large number of small players are involved is reinforced bars used in construction. Industry officials said that the supply was lower by around 10-15 per cent across the northern region, which is seeing a construction boom.