FOCUS: Indian steel exports under threat amid worker shortage, freight problems

Exports of ferrous materials from India could become more logistically challenging in the coming weeks while the country battles the Covid-19 pandemic, market participants have told Fastmarkets.

The worst may still be to come for steel exports out of Covid-hit eastern India, sources said, because of a lack of available stevedores, forces majeures at ports and reduced steel output at certain plants.
Lack of truck drivers and stevedores slows steel exports from some ports in eastern India.Concerns over vessel supply, material quality and freight costs dissuade traders from buying Indian induction furnace (IF) billet.Force majeure declared at Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports. Steel shipments continuing, slowly, out of Gangavaram at the time of publishing on Wednesday May 12.Production at electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) and IFs disrupted by redirection of oxygen supplies to hospitals for medical use. Blast furnace (BF) output more stable.

Indian steelmakers have orders for several hundred thousand tonnes of semi-finished steel exports due to be shipped in the next two months, with most of them sold to China and scheduled to be shipped...

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