SteelOrbis has been informed that Turkish producers' billet prices for their local market have declined by $10/mt on average compared to last week to $400-420/mt ex-works. Additionally, on May 4 Turkish steel producer Kardemir opened its billet sales at $400-405/mt ex-works. The producer closed its billet sales after a couple of hours after receiving orders for a total of around 142,500 mt of billets. The large volume of billet sold has contributed to the weakening of local billet prices.
Market sources report that an ex-China billet deal was concluded in Turkey's Marmara region last week at $360/mt CFR but the transaction in question has not been confirmed yet. On the other hand, the level of $360/mt is unavailable now for Chinese billet export offers to Turkey, which are currently in the range of $365-370/mt CFR. Meanwhile, ex-CIS billet offers have been under pressure from attractive Chinese billet offers but have remained firm at $390-400/mt CFR. The CIS billet market is expected to be quiet in terms of transaction activities until May 12 when the holiday period in the region is over.