Buyers in the local Turkish wire rod market, who were last week expected to make purchases for their inventories as September came to an end, have postponed buying wire rod due to the stagnancy in final product (steel mesh, nail) sales. Additionally, the bargaining power of actual buyers has increased in line with the competition for wire rod sales among producers in the Turkish domestic market. Also, the $/TRY exchange rate at the level of 1.42 has caused wire rod offers to the domestic market to remain stable. With the price gap between the Iskenderun region of Turkey and the other regions of the country having widened, the volume of wire rod sales offers to the Iskenderun region from the other regions of Turkey is heard to have increased.
At the IREPAS conference organized by SteelOrbis in Madrid, some of the observations made by participants as regards wire rod are as follows: demand for wire rod with higher added-value as compared to rebar is following a positive trend; buyers in European countries such as Greece prefer to evaluate ex-southern Europe import offers as they face higher sales prices in their domestic market due to sudden changes in the €/$ exchange rate; and there has been a significant increase in the number of price inquiries from buyers in Latin America while US buyers still hesitate.
Generally, with winter conditions starting to be felt all over the world, existing construction projects are observed to be slowing down. Due to the strong winter conditions in Sri Lanka in particular, buyers in this country are hesitating as regards new purchases. Since China is still on holiday, export offers for ex-China boron-added wire rod have been delayed until after the holiday.