Following the long-lived sideways movement seen in May, import scrap prices in Turkey started to indicate an upward tendency in June and are still maintaining their strength. Although import scrap purchasing prices remained unchanged last week, almost all steel producers in Turkey significantly increased their domestic scrap purchasing prices. It is observed that deep sea scrap suppliers are now offering HMS I/II 80:20 scrap to Turkey at $305/mt CFR but Turkish steel mills are not ready to accept prices higher than $300/mt CFR which is considered to be the psychological threshold.
With Australia-based Rio Tinto, the world's second biggest iron ore producer, announcing that the company’s iron ore shipments in 2017 are expected to decline, Chinese iron ore futures market has moved up, leading iron ore prices to reach $69/mt CFR today, July 18, after an upward trend lasted two days. On the other hand, demand for rebar and hot rolled coil (HRC) in China has slowed down slightly and future prices of these products were seen to decline today. This decline has not yet been reflected in the finished steel prices in the domestic and export markets.
Meanwhile, having increased after Ramadan amid the rises seen in China, domestic demand for finished steel in Turkey has slowed down. With the additional influence of the Turkish lira gaining strength against the US dollar, domestic rebar prices have followed a declining trend this week.
Turkish steel producers, who have almost completed their purchases for August shipments, are now maintaining a cautious stance as regards concluding new import scrap deals as they are still experiencing difficulties in their export markets with their rebar export sales slowing down and also due to the fluctuations seen in China. Accordingly, Turkish mills are trying to preserve the price levels of import scrap prices recorded over the previous weeks.