During the past week, demand in the local Turkish billet market has been at low levels amid the declines seen in import billet quotations and due to the ongoing depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar. Kardemir's new billet prices announced on November 21 were lower than the domestic billet quotations of Turkish steel mills recorded last week. In addition to this development, import billet offers to Turkey have declined over the past week and with the influence of the weak demand Turkish steel producers have reduced their domestic billet prices by $18/mt week on week to $392-415/mt ex-works. However, market sources state that Turkish steelmakers may increase their domestic billet prices slightly as Chinese billet quotations have started to move up once again as of November 22.
Increased uncertainty has been observed in the global steel market over the past week due to the significant fluctuations recorded in steel prices. Accordingly, Turkish buyers' demand for import billet has been on the weak side in the same period. Following the sharp decline recorded last week in the futures markets in China where domestic demand for billet was at low levels, Chinese billet offers to the export markets had also declined rapidly and were at $365-380/mt FOB on November 21. However, Chinese billet export prices, which had started to move up on November 22, are in the range of $380-385/mt FOB today, November 23.
In the same period, ex-CIS billet offers to the export markets have softened slightly due to the changes seen in Chinese billet export prices. As a result, ex-CIS billet offers to Turkey have declined by $10/mt week on week to $390-400/mt CFR. On the other hand, if the upward movement of the Chinese steel market continues in the coming days, it is believed that ex-CIS billet quotations may also increase.