‘Steel prices will continue to rise on high input cost’

Tata Steel has said that the prices of steel will continue to show an upward trend in the near future due to rise in the cost of raw materials.

“Steel prices will continue to increase in the line of raw material cost,” the company Vice-Chairman, Mr B. Muthuraman, told reporters on the sidelines of an event organised by industry body CII here today.

He, however, did not specify the amount or percentage of price rise.

Last month, the company’s Managing Director, Mr H.M. Nerurkar, said high input costs could continue to put pressure on steel prices in the domestic market even as the demand is expected to remain high.

“Steel prices will continue to increase in the near future due to a rise in the cost of raw materials. But the demand for steel will go up,” Mr Nerurkar had said, adding that the prices of raw materials such as coking coal were showing an upward trend.

Prices of spot coking coal are increasing in Queensland, the largest coal producing province in Australia. The country has been battered by its worst floods for the past few decades.