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Steel majors yet to decide on price hike

By Pratim Ranjan Bose

KOLKATA DEC. 23. Will steel prices go up again? There is a strong rumour that it will and that too before the New Year. The men in charge are, however, not sure as to whether any such move will have a negative impact on the rising domestic demand curve and, are rather favouring a volume game to enhance profitability.

"The sentiment is extremely volatile at present and any manipulation or manoeuvring of prices at this moment may be counter-productive. Focussing on volume sales at current prices to ensure an increase in profitability, without disturbing the demand side, should be the right approach at this juncture," said a top official of a public sector steel company.

"We want to make maximum profit to make up for the losses in the last few years and in future also. At the moment we are monitoring the price situation closely," confirms another senior executive, also from a public sector steel company.

While there is a global short supply of ore, fuelled by China, adding capacities almost double the size of the capacity of 30 odd million tonnes of Indian companies, the situation with regard to coal is also `tightening' globally. Freight tariff has increased by $15 a tonne during the last six months. "In fact we are already being pursued to pay higher ore prices than the agreed level for the current fiscal," sources in a steel major, not having captive sources, told The Hindu.

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