During the past week, Turkish
billet producers have kept their domestic prices stable at $340-360/mt ex-works, while demand in the local Turkish
billet market has remained at low levels as buyers have been concluding purchases only in line with their needs.
Meanwhile, ex-CIS
billet offers to
Turkey have moved sideways over the past week at $330-340/mt CFR. Also, Chinese
billet suppliers'
billet offers to
Turkey have increased by $25/mt on the lower end and by $30/mt on the upper end to $370-380/mt CFR. Chinese
billet prices, which were long considered to be unattractive by Turkish buyers, have continued their upward trend over the past week and so Turkish buyers have shown no interest in concluding purchases of Chinese
billet. On the other hand, Chinese
billet suppliers are only giving a limited number of offers to
Turkey and to the global market in general since they believe their higher offers will fail to gain acceptance from buyers.
In the short term, Turkish buyers are expected to continue purchasing import scrap instead of
billet as
billet quotations are not attractive enough to create a cost advantage in finished steel production. Accordingly, demand for import
billet in
Turkey is expected to remain weak.