Turkish steel producers' domestic billet prices have remained unchanged at $392-415/mt ex-works during the past week, while buyers are postponing their billet purchases as they consider the current price range to be on the high side due to the slackness of their finished steel sales. Despite the weakness of demand, Turkish steel producers have kept their billet prices stable week on week amid the lack of any significant decline in import billet quotations and as domestic billet supply is at low levels, while it has been difficult to conclude new scrap deals at targeted price levels.
Meanwhile, ex-CIS billet offers to Turkey, which were at $400-415/mt CFR on November 30, subsequently moved up, reaching $400-420/mt CFR towards the end of last week with the influence of the rises seen in Chinese billet quotations. However, CIS-based suppliers' billet offers to Turkey have declined to $400-410/mt in the current week due to the weak demand conditions. It is reported that Turkish buyers have found the declines recorded in ex-CIS billet offers to be insufficient, and so no new ex-CIS billet purchase has been made in Turkey over the past week.
Following new environmental protection measures in China, involving the halting of production at intermediate frequency melting furnaces, the Chinese steel futures market and Chinese billet export prices, which had fluctuated last week, have moved on an upward trend at the beginning of the current week due to expectations of a decline in Chinese domestic billet supply. Chinese suppliers' billet offers have increased by an average of $10/mt week on week to $415-420/mt FOB. Turkish buyers still consider Chinese suppliers' billet offers to be very high and their delivery times to be disadvantageous and so they prefer not to conclude deals for Chinese billet.