Iron ore spot prices maintains u

Bombay : Chinese steel prices maintains solid growth towards the weekend The domestic price levels moved strongly on Friday giving firm signals of a market which will see the light of the day. The warming season improved the demand leading to stock depletion with the stockiest and traders. Apart from improved transactions increasing raw material prices supported the increase in prices. Though inventories of steel products stood at relatively high level, the recent downward trend indicates demand from end-users is gradually picking up. The resoluteness of the market is all the more striking when viewed in backdrop of 25 basis point increase in the lending rates. TATA Steel sales volume from India up by 4pct TATA Steel completed the fiscal year, 2010-11 with an all round increase in its hot metal, crude steel, saleable steel production and sales over last year. The crude steel production at 6.855 million tonnes exceeded the installed capacity of 6.8 million tonnes in the 2nd year after commissioning of the expansion project. 1. G blast furnace achieved best ever annual production of 2.11 million tonnes (Previous best 2.09 million tonnes in FY '10). 2. Both the Steel Melting Shop LD#2 and LD#1 achieved their best ever production of 3.80 million tonnes (Previous best 3.71 million tonnes in FY’10) and 3.05 million tonnes (Previous best 2.85 million tonnes in FY '10) respectively. Iron ore spot prices maintains uptrend on traders interest The spot iron ore market remained buoyant on weekend with a climb of another 1%. The sellers are beaming with confidence, whereas buyers are trying to outbid to secure quality material. However the composition of the buyers is skewed in favour of traders rather than mills. The reason being mills are cautious about restocking in this fledgling market which is tottering back to normalcy after a gap of nearly 2 months. Since there is an underlining apprehension about the sustainability of revival the mills have opted for caution for the time being rather than go on a buying spree. Moreover most of the mills are adequately stocked at least for the next 1 month.