Last week, the situation of bearish end-user demand did not undergo much change in the European merchant bar market. Meanwhile, offers from European merchant bar producers continued to soften over the past week.
As regards the Turkish mills, their offers maintained a softening trend in their domestic merchant bar market over the last week. The new developments seen in the Turkish domestic merchant bar market during the week in question were the fluctuations in the TRY/$ exchange rate and the rise in trading activity at the end of the week due to the scrap bookings concluded by the Turkish mills. At the beginning of last week, offers from the Turkish merchant bar producers for NPI-NPU profiles and angles stood at TRY 810-860/mt ($533-566/mt), while their offers for flat and square bars stood at TRY 810-870/mt ($533-572/mt): by the end of last week, however, the producers' offer levels for NPI-NPU profiles and angles were in a range of TRY 740-800/mt ($487-526/mt), while their flat and square bar offers were in the range of TRY 750-810/mt ($493-533/mt). Late last week, Turkish mills' scrap bookings inspired a recovery in steel trading activity, causing prices to show a minor increase in Turkey's domestic merchant bar market.
Last week, Turkish mills' merchant bar offer levels for the export market continued to soften. With ex-CIS billet refusing to descend below the level of $300/mt FOB and international trading firms continuing to give offers below this level, Turkey's merchant bar producers have leant towards the traders. Thus, Turkish mills' offers to the export markets stood at $480-490/mt FOB for angles, for NPI and NPU they stood at $500-510/mt FOB, 80-100-120 mm IPE were in a range of $560-570/mt FOB, 80-100-120 IPE A stood at $570-580/mt FOB, 80-100-120 IPE AA were at levels of $580-590/mt FOB, while flat bars stood at $490-500/mt FOB. The prices in question are on actual weight basis and for November shipment.
Looking at the domestic markets of Spain, Portugal and Italy, we see that end-user demand has still remained slack in these countries. The offer levels of the merchant bar producers in the Italian market have continued to soften, declining to levels of €550-580/mt ($706-745/mt) ex-works.
The UK domestic market was last week characterized by sluggishness in terms of demand. Merchant bar prices in this market were in the range of £530-540/mt ($867-883/mt) delivered to customer, unchanged from the previous week.
On the other hand, offers from domestic mills are still at high levels in the Romanian market, and so merchant bar buyers in Romania have continued to lean towards imports.
Overall, during the past week the European market, which is trying to cope with difficulties in the sector itself as well as with the effects of the financial crisis, was characterized by continuing price decreases and weak end-user demand.