Steel Supplier in Karachi — Flat Steel Coil and Sheet from Moin Steel Market

Raw Easy Corp is a flat steel trading house at Office No. 85-A, Moin Steel Market, Karachi, with a second warehouse at Main Sirya Gali. We supply hot rolled coil, cold rolled coil, galvanised GP/GI coil and sheet, PPGI colour-coated coil, ZAM, Galvalume and corrugated roofing sheet, from local mills and from imported stock. To ask what is available and at what rate, ring +92 314 3279729 or write to Info@raweasycorp.com; the rest of the details are on the contact page.

What we supply to Karachi buyers

Hot rolled coil (HRC) is the heavy end of the flat range — black steel in the thicker gauges, going to pipe and tube makers, structural fabricators and shops rolling sections. No mill in Pakistan currently produces HRC, so the HRC traded here is imported, and Karachi is where it comes ashore.

Cold rolled coil (CRC) is HRC rolled down cold to a tighter thickness tolerance and a cleaner surface, for panels, furniture, drums, shutters and anything that will be painted or powder-coated afterwards. We supply CRC from both local producers, International Steels (ISL) and Aisha Steel (ASML).

Galvanised GP/GI coil and sheet is CRC with a zinc coating, and it is the workhorse of this market — ducting, trays, enclosures, tanks, shutters, light structural work, and the base material for corrugated roofing. What decides how it performs is the zinc coating class, quoted as Z80, Z140, Z275 and so on: the number is grams of zinc per square metre across both faces, and on a coastal site it does more than the brand name to determine how long the sheet lasts. We supply ISL and Aisha galvanised alongside imported prime.

PPGI colour-coated coil is galvanised or galvalume substrate with a factory-applied paint system on top, bought for roofing, wall cladding, sandwich panel skins and shop fronts where appearance matters as much as protection.

Galvalume, which we supply under the HESHE brand, uses an aluminium-zinc alloy coating in place of pure zinc and holds up better than plain galvanised against atmospheric corrosion on exposed roofs, which is why it is specified on industrial sheds and long-span roofing. ZAM, a zinc-aluminium-magnesium coated steel, goes further again where ordinary galvanising is thinnest — at cut edges and formed bends — and is bought for solar mounting structures, racking, cable trays and outdoor enclosures that have to sit in humid coastal air for years.

Corrugated roofing sheet is galvanised or colour-coated sheet profiled into the familiar wave, and it is standard on godowns, sheds and boundary work across the city. What matters most for how long a corrugated roof lasts is base thickness and coating class rather than the profile — a thin sheet with a light zinc coating can look much the same when you buy it and corrode far sooner at the laps.

How flat-steel rates are quoted in Karachi

Karachi is where imported flat steel lands. HRC, and imported GP, colour-coated, galvalume and ZAM, arrive by sea and come ashore here, so the rate on this market is set by two forces at once: the landed cost of imported coil, which moves with the international coil price, the rupee, freight and whatever duty applies to that origin and grade; and the published rates of the two local CRC and galvanised producers, ISL and Aisha Steel, both listed on the PSX. When the two diverge, the trading market is where the gap gets settled. The comparison of local and imported flat steel goes through how the two routes differ on specification, documentation and risk, which is usually the more useful question than which is cheaper on the day.

Duty is part of that arithmetic, and it is origin-specific. Chinese-origin galvalume carries a flat 40.47% anti-dumping duty as an anti-circumvention measure notified to run until February 2027; Chinese GP carries anti-dumping duty at mill-specific rates, with a higher residual rate for exporters not named in the determination; Chinese colour-coated has carried anti-dumping duty since 2018; HRC currently carries none from any origin. While a measure is in force it sits inside the landed cost, so confirm the position that applies on the day you cost a shipment rather than working from a figure you read somewhere. The galvalume anti-dumping duty explainer sets out how that measure works.

This is also why quotations here are not all written as plain rupee figures. Some grades are quoted as an absolute rate per ton; others are quoted as a differential below the prevailing local mill rate, written on a rate list as a number followed by “down Mill Rate” — meaning that many rupees per ton below the mill’s own list rate for that grade and thickness. The reason is practical: mill rates move, and a differential stays meaningful when an absolute number has already gone stale. To read a quote of that kind you need the mill’s rate for the exact grade and thickness on the day, then subtract, and two quotes are not comparable until you know which convention each one is written in. Our rate list shows which items are quoted absolute and which as a differential, and names the stock location against them.

What coastal air does to flat steel, and what to specify because of it

Karachi’s problem is not rainfall. It is that air coming off the sea carries chloride salt well inland, and that for much of the year surfaces cool past the dew point overnight and sit wet until mid-morning. Chlorides break down the passive layer that protects zinc, and salt sitting on a damp surface is what strips a coating. Two identical sheets — same base metal, same thickness — will not give the same service life here as they would in a dry inland city, and a nightly film of salty dew does more damage than heavy rain that dries off in an hour.

The variable that decides how long a bare galvanised sheet lasts outdoors is not gauge. It is the zinc coating class: the grams of zinc per square metre across both faces. A Z80 sheet has a fraction of the zinc of a Z275 sheet, and it is the zinc that is consumed first. Thicker base metal buys stiffness and dent resistance; it does not add zinc. That matters commercially because coating class does not show up in a per-ton rate at all, and on a rate list written partly in absolute figures and partly in differentials the number alone tells you even less. Our guide to zinc coating classes Z80 to Z275 sets out what each class means and how to read it off a mill test certificate rather than take it on trust.

A light coating is not a defective choice, it is a shorter-life one, and where the material is going in this city decides whether that is sensible. Buildings close to the water — the harbour, the Port Qasim side, the sea-facing southern belt — sit in the harshest exposure; partitions, ceiling framing and ducting inside a covered building well back from the sea are barely fighting salt at all. Same market, same rate list, genuinely different right answers. Three cases are worth separating, because they age by different mechanisms:

Bare galvanised GP/GI. Zinc protects sacrificially, corroding in preference to the steel beneath it, so outdoor life broadly tracks how much zinc is there. Left exposed to sea air with nothing over it, this is one of the most demanding cases there is.
Galvalume and ZAM. Galvalume’s aluminium-zinc coating gives better barrier protection on open flat surfaces than plain zinc; ZAM’s zinc-aluminium-magnesium coating behaves differently again, the magnesium working hardest where the coating is thinnest. Both are designated by coating mass on their own scales, not on the Z scale used for galvanised, so “step up the coating class” does not translate straight across from one to the other.
PPGI colour-coated. The paint is not the corrosion barrier. On a coastal roof the metallic coating underneath it, and the cut edges, fastener holes and laps, decide the outcome long before the topcoat does: salt and damp drive edge creep and under-film corrosion, while chalking and fading are a separate, ultraviolet mechanism. A good paint over a thin zinc layer is a good finish on a short-lived sheet. The PE, SMP and PVDF paint systems guide covers what each is suited to.

Roofing deserves the most deliberate decision, because it is permanently exposed, it is expensive to replace once a building is occupied, and here it faces salt air from the day it goes up. It is also where the per-ton rate is most tempting to optimise, since the tonnage is visible on the invoice and the coating class is not. When you are pricing corrugated roofing sheet, ask what the coating class is before you compare rates: two quotes that look level per ton can be quoting sheets with very different lifespans, and the cheaper one is only cheaper if you meant to buy the shorter life. If you are unsure which way a job should go, tell us the application, the exposure and how long the client expects it to last when you ring, and we can talk through the classes normally specified for that kind of work.

Receiving and storing coil in Karachi: white rust

The second thing this city does to flat steel happens before anything is installed. Wet storage stain — white rust — is the powdery white or grey deposit that forms when freshly galvanised surfaces sit wet in still air. It is zinc oxidising fast because moisture is trapped between wraps or between stacked sheets and cannot evaporate, and it consumes the coating that was supposed to protect the sheet for years; on a light class it can go through to bare steel under the bloom.

Karachi supplies the conditions for it more reliably than an inland city does. Humidity stays high for months at a time, monsoon weeks leave yards wet and slow to drain, and — because this is where imported coil comes ashore — a great deal of the flat steel here has spent time in a sealed container at sea. Containers breathe: the box heats through the day and cools at night, every night at sea and again on the terminal, and moisture loaded with the cargo condenses onto the steel. Coil can therefore arrive damp inside the wrap having looked perfectly dry from the outside. That is why white rust is a routine problem on this market rather than an exotic one, and why a coil that comes out of a container wet and goes straight into a closed godown can show staining in days rather than months.

What follows is buyer-side practice, whether you lift the material from the market yourself or have it carried to your site:

Open the wrap; do not just receive the bundle. Outer packing tells you nothing about what is underneath. Cut back enough to see the steel on the outer wraps of a coil, or on the top and bottom sheets of a bundle.
If it is wet, dry it before it goes into the stack. Strip the wet wrap, separate sheets where you can, and stand or lay a coil where air moves across it. Wet material sealed back up is the exact condition that produces the stain.
Store under cover, off the floor, with air moving. Concrete floors sweat in humid weather. Timber dunnage, a tilt so water runs off rather than pools, and a gap between stacks matter more here than a neat stack does.
Do not tarpaulin damp coil tightly. Plastic strapped down over wet steel is a humidity chamber. Cover the top and leave the sides open.
Check the mill test certificate, where one comes with the material, against what you ordered — grade, thickness, and above all coating class and coating mass. The guide to reading a mill test certificate goes through the fields one by one, and the gauge-to-millimetre chart is useful when the order was placed in gauge and the certificate reports millimetres.
Photograph anything you are unhappy with as it is unloaded. Dated photographs of the material as it came off are worth far more than a description written a week later.

The goods receipt matters more than it looks. Signing a receipt or gate pass clean is a statement that the material arrived in the condition described, and once it is signed, separating damage that was already there from damage that developed in your own godown becomes an argument rather than a fact. If something is wrong — visible staining, water inside the wrap, damaged edges, packing that has clearly been opened — write it on the paperwork before you sign, and keep your copy. The white rust prevention guide goes further into how the stain forms, how to tell light surface staining from coating loss that has gone too far, and what can and cannot be recovered.

How to buy: what to have ready before you ring

Flat steel is traded per ton, and the same product name carries very different rates depending on thickness, coating and origin, so a rate only means something against a specification. Have these ready:

Thickness in millimetres — and say whether the figure is bare metal thickness (BMT, the steel before coating) or the total coated thickness including zinc and paint. On thin galvanised and colour-coated sheet the two are not the same number, and comparing one against the other is how a rate comes to look cheap when it is not.
Width, and for sheet the length — in millimetres or feet, whichever the drawing uses.
Grade — commercial quality, drawing quality, structural, or the specific standard your fabricator or consultant has written into the drawing.
Coating class, if the material is coated — the zinc class for galvanised, or the paint system for PPGI. It changes both the rate and how long the sheet lasts in this air, so it is not a detail to leave open; the zinc coating guide explains what the classes mean in practice.
Tonnage — quantity is one of the inputs that moves a per-ton rate, so give it alongside the specification rather than after it.

Gauge numbers are still in everyday use on this market — buyers ask for 26 gauge or 24 gauge sheet without a second thought — but gauge is a trade convention, not a fixed measurement, and different tables give different millimetre equivalents. Ask which millimetre figure the gauge is being read against, and check it on the gauge-to-millimetre chart before you compare two quotes. Two suppliers can both say “26 gauge” and be talking about different steel. If you are still deciding between grades, the product list sets out what we supply; ring +92 314 3279729 with the specification in front of you.

Visiting us on Moin Steel Market

Raw Easy Corp is at Office No. 85-A, Moin Steel Market, Karachi, Sindh, with a second warehouse at Main Sirya Gali. Give the office number, 85-A, when you ask for directions inside the market. For a map pin, use our Google Business Profile.

Material against different rows of the rate list does not all sit in one place — the locations named on the list are the warehouse, Sirya Gali, Arain Adda and Ahmed Bond — so quote the row or the specification you are asking about when you ring, since what you want to look at may not be at the address you were heading to.

The advantage of buying from a market in your own city is that it is done in person: you can look at the coil, see the edges and the wrap, ask for the mill test certificate with the steel in front of you, and settle a rate face to face rather than off photographs. It costs nothing to use. Phone and email are on the contact page; ring +92 314 3279729 before you travel.

Frequently asked questions

What is the steel rate in Karachi today?

It moves, which is why this page does not carry a number. Flat-steel rates here track the local mill rates, the landed cost of imported coil and the rupee, and they are quoted against a specification rather than against a product name — thickness, width, grade, coating class and tonnage between them decide the figure. The rate list is the reference point: some rows on it are absolute per-ton figures and others are pegged as a differential below the prevailing mill rate, so check which convention a row is written in before you compare it with anything else. Duty feeds into imported material as well, and it is origin-specific — Chinese-origin galvalume, GP and colour-coated all carry anti-dumping duty, while HRC currently carries none from any origin. The galvalume anti-dumping duty explainer sets out the galvalume position.

Where can I buy steel sheet in Karachi?

Flat steel in Karachi is traded through the steel markets, and Raw Easy Corp sits in one of them, at Office No. 85-A, Moin Steel Market. Karachi is also where imported coil comes ashore, which is why the range available on this market is wider than the two local mills on their own would give you: no mill in Pakistan currently produces hot rolled coil, so all HRC traded here is imported. What we supply is set out on the product list — HRC, CRC, galvanised GP and GI coil and sheet, colour-coated PPGI, ZAM, HESHE galvalume and corrugated roofing sheet. Where a job could go to either local mill, the ISL and Aisha comparison sets out where the two differ.

Which coating should I specify for a roof in Karachi?

Heavier than you would specify inland. The air here is salty and rarely dry, so the zinc coating class carries more weight than the gauge argument buyers usually have first: a light class such as Z80 will not behave on an exposed Karachi roof the way Z275 will, and for corrosion the coating does more work than the thickness. Galvalume and ZAM are the aluminium-zinc and zinc-aluminium-magnesium alternatives to plain galvanised, designated on their own coating-mass scales rather than the Z scale, so they are not simply a further step up the same ladder. Colour-coated PPGI adds a paint system on top of the metallic coating, where the choice between PE, SMP and PVDF decides how the colour holds; the paint systems guide covers that. Ring with the exposure and the sheet length you need, so the specification is discussed against the actual roof.

What is the difference between prime and secondary coil?

Two different things get called secondary. The first is material the mill itself downgraded before it shipped — off-gauge sections, uneven coating, edge damage, coil-break marks. The second matters more in Karachi: prime material that shipped sound and landed stained, because humidity and condensation inside a container produce white rust on galvanised coil as a matter of routine here, and stain is one of the reasons coil ends up trading at a discount. Prime is material the mill released to specification with a mill test certificate behind it, so ask for the certificate covering the coil you are being offered, and ask which of the two a rate refers to before you compare quotes — a secondary rate set against a prime rate is not a comparison. The mill test certificate guide covers the paperwork, the white rust guide covers the storage side, and the brands guide sets out who makes what.

How is corrugated roofing sheet quoted in Karachi?

Per ton, like the rest of the flat range, which is why two corrugated quotes are only comparable once you know the base thickness and the coating class behind them; the profile is the least important of the three. Colour-coated corrugated adds the paint system as a fourth variable. Because the sheet is going onto a roof in coastal air, the coating class is the number to settle first, and it is the one most often left out of a verbal quote. The corrugated sheet page covers the profiles and material options, and if you are weighing local against imported material for the job, the local versus imported comparison is the place to start.