Stainless steel likely to rise on high input costs

Prices of stainless steel products may rise once again, soon, owing to rising costs of inputs like nickel.

Arvind Parakh, director - finance, Jindal Stainless, said prices of inputs rose once again after the company had hiked prices of its stainless steel products in the last week of July, adding that the firm was closely monitoring the demand and price situation.

Jindal Stainless had last raised the price of grade 304 stainless steel to the tune of Rs 2,000-3,000 a tonne (depending on specific customer requirements) to approximately Rs 70,000 a tonne in July-end.

Parakh also said given the daily fluctuations in nickel prices, customers, who made enquiries, were offered a price which was valid only for the next 48 hours.

On the London Metal Exchange, nickel "� a key raw material "� is currently quoting at $28,050 a tonne compared with $18,975 a tonne in mid-June.

Nickel was understood to constitute about 10-15 per cent of the stainless steel production cost, depending on the grade of the product, analysts said.

The rise in nickel prices is attributed to declining availability of the metal at the LME. For instance, the exchange's official opening stock for nickel on August 8 was 5,958 tonne "� almost one-third of the June 15 inventory level of 15,840 tonne.

Meanwhile, analysts said end-user industries, such as construction, are increasingly showing signs of shifting to low-nickel stainless steel grades in a bid to offset rising costs of nickel.