Speaking at the SteelOrbis Spring '12 Conference & 66th IREPAS Meeting held in London on April 1-3, Kerim Dilber, foreign markets coordinator of the Turkish Steel Exporters' Association, said that Turkey's rebar production exceeded 12 million mt in 2011, rising from 4.5 million mt in the early 2000s, while its wire rod production, which was 1.6 million mt in the early 2000s, reached 2.79 million mt last year. Kerim Dilber went on to say that their forecast for Turkish production in 2015 is for 13.8 million mt of rebar and 3.3 million mt for wire rod.
Mr. Dilber said that, with the strong performance of the Turkish construction industry, domestic construction steel demand is expected to show an average seven percent growth per year up tp 2015. To meet this growing demand, the capacity utilization rate will show a steady increase up to 2015, reaching 82.4 percent, with a capacity utilization rate of 79.8 percent expected for the current year, according to Dilber's figures.
Heavily dependent on use of scrap in long steel production, the Turkish steel industry currently consumes some 30 million mt of scrap per year, with scrap imports reaching 21.4 million mt last year. However, domestic scrap supplies in Turkey are increasing and in 2011 30.30 percent of total scrap consumption in the country was supplied from the domestic market, up from 23.8 percent in 2010.