The Turkish hot rolled coil (HRC) market has been full of talk about the antidumping investigation announced in Turkey in relation to imports from several countries, including China, Japan, Russia and India. The trade case will certainly take time, but Turkey may end up with significantly restricted HRC imports.
Meanwhile, HRC offers from China have increased again, following several deals to Turkey, while Turkish domestic prices have remained soft despite certain attempts to increase them due to costlier scrap.
Local HRC prices in Turkey are mainly at $630-640/mt ex-works in official offers, although several traders report $625/mt CFR Marmara levels are available. “For some mills, $610/mt ex-works base should be acceptable then, also since it is in line with export targets,” a source told SteelOrbis. Currently, some official HRC export offers from Turkey are at $590-610/mt FOB, although the workable levels in many markets are not above $555-570/mt FOB.
In the import segment, China has increased offers for December shipments to $577-580/mt CFR, following several deals closed at $555-560/mt CFR. There are no takers yet at this level, but, according to sources, not all re-rollers have restocked yet. The announced AD investigation has not yet had an actual effect on the import market, although sources are fairly sure that China will be forced to decrease its presence in Turkey eventually. “This is all to cut off China from selling here. The others [countries involved] are side actors,” a trader said. Some Asian sellers are quite excited about the investigation, particularly in Vietnam, thinking that they may expand their sales to Turkey. Many also believe that a high antidumping duty rate may be imposed on Russia. “Local Russian prices are generally higher than export prices, and, if the investigation is carried out as it should be, Russia will be out,” a Turkish HRC buyer said.