During the past week, Turkish billet producers have kept their domestic prices stable at $340-360/mt ex-works for the third consecutive week. Meanwhile, demand in the local Turkish billet market is still weak as buyers are concluding purchases only in line with their needs for now and are postponing restocking activities.
Although demand for import billet in Turkey has remained slack over the past week, import billet offers to the country have moved sideways in the same period. Accordingly, ex-CIS and Chinese billet offers to Turkey are still at $330-340/mt CFR and $370-380/mt CFR, respectively. Market sources state that Turkish buyers still consider Chinese billet prices to be on the high side, while demand for Chinese billet is currently at low levels as Turkish buyers are showing no interest in Chinese billet. Also, ex-CIS billet quotations and CIS-based suppliers' lead times are more attractive compared to quotations and lead times for Chinese billet. However, as SteelOrbis has previously reported, buyers are still purchasing import scrap instead of billet as billet quotations are not attractive enough to ensure a cost advantage in finished steel production.