At the opening of the SteelOrbis 2017 Spring Conference & 76th IREPAS Meeting held in Budapest on March 26-28, Murat Cebecioglu, chairman of IREPAS, the global association of producers and exporters of long steel products, and also export manager of Turkish steelmaker ICDAS, welcomed all the participants to the event. The SteelOrbis 2017 Spring Conference & 76th IREPAS Meeting has gathered together a total of 107 representatives from steel producers and 58 representatives from raw material suppliers.
The IREPAS chairman said that the steel industry has once again succeeded in overcoming the significant challenges posed by the global economic situation, with the supply and demand balance in the long steel market continuing to improve in the US, Europe and Asia.
Mr. Cebecioglu stated that the $1 trillion infrastructure spending promised by Trump has boosted the market, though he pointed out it will take two to three years to start such projects and they will all have a ‘Buy American’ clause and so it will not be exciting for importers.
Regarding the duty rates announced in the trade cases launched by the US against rebar imports, Mr. Cebecioglu said that the rates for Turkish and Taiwanese rebar will allow trade to continue, but this is not the case for Japan who got slapped with rates much higher than expected.
He went on to say that both buyers and sellers agree that multiple markets are gaining strength simultaneously, while prices and spreads are more stable than in the previous year. However, he went on to say that global production has started to move up, which is not a good sign for the market.