During the 30th week of 2008 (July 21-27), the CIS export market for all products under review continued to decrease on the back of falling levels of business activity. Meanwhile, the CIS domestic markets followed different trends depending on the products. Thus, whereas the Russian domestic market for scrap continued to preserve its stability, the Ukrainian market for the same material saw a continuation of its increasing trend. As for finished steel products, the Ukrainian market for both flats and longs saw no changes during the week in question, while the Russian market for these products registered a slight rise in prices.
Scrap: Black Sea region scrap market continues to show no sign of activity
During the 30th week, the Black Sea region scrap market continued to show a calm trend in terms of purchases, while prices for A3 grade scrap continued to trend downward. Turkish scrap consumers, which abstained from the market in the previous couple of weeks, continued to do so during the week in question, pushing the price of scrap import offers down further. During the last week, the price offer of A3 grade scrap was heard below $580/mt CIF Turkey, registering a reduction of $20/mt over the previous week.
Meanwhile, the Russian domestic scrap market showed no changed in the week ended July 27. As the market players are waiting for the government's final decision on the scrap export and import duties, no change in prices has been observed. However, once the export duty increase proposed by the government is implemented and the import duty on this raw material is canceled, the domestic price for A3 grade scrap is unlikely to see a downward correction.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian domestic A3 grade scrap prices continued to rise during the 30th week, gaining about UAH 100/mt ($21/mt) over the week.
Longs: Ex-CIS billets and longs go down under pressure of low demand
With the reduction of demand for billet in the Middle East and Gulf region, CIS origin billet price offers continued to soften during the last week. In addition, the decrease in the export offer price levels of the Chinese producers for the abovementioned markets has given a further push down to the price offers of the CIS producers.
The situation in the CIS longs export markets follows the developments in the CIS billet markets. During the week in question, rebar offer prices from the CIS saw a downward change due to the continued reduction in the international billet market. This rebar trend is expected to continue till the end of August, by which time the main consuming regions are expected to have reduced their current stocks and to return to active purchases, thus possibly generating another price increase wave.
During the week ended July 27, the Russian domestic longs market showed mixed trends. On the one hand, several traders increased their prices, while others reduced their offers slightly. Overall, the market saw a small increase in retail market prices over the week in question. Meanwhile, the current trend would seem to indicate that the Russian domestic longs market is moving into a stabilization phase.
The Ukrainian domestic market continued its stable trend during the week in question.
Flats: CIS price offers continue their descent
CIS origin flats continued to see a reduction in their export offers during the week ended July 27. Due to the reduction of purchase activities in the main supplying market, the price offers of CIS flats saw a reduction of $10-20/mt, depending on the material, for the Middle East and Mediterranean markets. Russian flats products saw also a reduction in price offers for the Iranian market, which till very recently was considered to be one of the most profitable sales markets. In the week in question, the price levels of Russian flats offers fell by an average of $50/mt, depending on the product, for the Iranian market.
The Russian domestic flats market saw a slight increase in retail prices during the week ended July 27. Thus, HR increased by about Ruble 200/mt ($8.5/mt) and the CR price went up by Ruble 250/mt ($11/mt) in the Russian retail market.
Meanwhile, just like the Ukrainian longs market, the country's flats market was calm during the week in question.