A general lack of activity and movement has this week again prevailed in the Middle East rebar market. While end-user demand in Saudi Arabia and the UAE has this week been seen to increase slightly as compared to recent weeks against the background of the flat trend of rebar prices in past weeks, no significant development has this week been observed in the two countries in question, just as in other Middle East countries. Local traders in the Middle East indicate that the exhausting of local rebar stocks will play a vital role in the Middle East's decision to start buying again, and they also say that they may start to buy rebars again as soon as local stock levels begin to decline.
A slight increase of optimism has this week been observed in the local Jordanian rebar market compared to last week. As a result, rebar prices in this country have increased during the week by approximately $10/mt as compared to last week.
In the local Turkish rebar market, rebar prices were at around TRY 900-920/mt ex-works/ex-warehouse including VAT ($455-465/mt excluding VAT) in the early days of the week; however, these prices registered an increase towards mid-week due to the changes in the US$/TRY exchange rate. Subsequently, coming towards the end of the week, rebar prices in Turkey have softened to the levels seen earlier in the week (with variations depending on Subsequently, coming towards the end of the week, rebar prices in Turkey have softened to the levels seen earlier in the week (with variations depending on the regions); this is because some traders in the local market have reduced their prices after Turkish rebar producers failed to achieve their desired levels in the exports market. Turkish rebar producers, which had concluded some deals to the US, Iraq, UAE, North Africa and Western Europe, have had a fairly comfortable month of January. They have also started to fulfill their order books for February. In this context, Turkish mills have this week not allowed rebar prices in the local market to fall down below $460/mt ex-works/ex-warehouse. Still, it has been observed this week that some traders reduced their prices below the abovementioned price level.
While activity in the international rebar markets has much more importance for countries like Turkey which produce more rebar than they consume, the global financial crisis is causing the local Turkish rebar market to be like a cat on the proverbial hot-tin roof. However, the main reason behind the stability of the Turkish rebar market at the price range of TRY 900-920/mt ex-works/ex-warehouse, including VAT, is producers' significantly reduction of their rebar outputs.