A few import deals have been fixed in Turkey for ex-Russia and ex-Donbass billet lots, and suppliers’ aim to not go below $500/mt CFR has been successful. However, it is worth mentioning that the demand has been coming from the merchant bar re-rollers, while the rebar mills still consider scrap usage to be more beneficial. In addition, there seems to be roughly no large billet lots, currently available in the market, at least for shipments from Black/Azov Seas.
According to sources, one of the traders has sold two 3,000 mt billet lots from Donbas at $503/mt CFR Izmir region for September shipments, which were earlier taken as position cargoes at around $470/mt FOB, as SteelOrbis reported. The same buyer has also recently booked another 3,000 mt prompt billet cargo from Russia at $510/mt CFR to be shipped from Novorossiysk. Earlier this week, the supplier was aiming at $505/mt FOB.
A few further negotiations are underway, and the suppliers are trying to get similar pricing. “Next week will show but for now I can say that the market is not too strong but sure the import scrap deals are there at relatively stable levels, so there ain’t as much pressure to go low [for billet],” a source told SteelOrbis. However, some of the market sources have reported there are buyers’ ideas in Turkey at $490/mt CFR Iskenderun, which does not seem viable at the moment.
With the most recent developments, the SteelOrbis daily reference price for ex-Russia billet has inched up to $470-475/mt FOB from $470/mt FOB, while the import billet reference price in Turkey is now at $495-505/mt CFR, $5/mt up from the lower end of the range from earlier this week.