Russian flat rolled export, domestic prices gap narrows

Various Russian sources report that export prices for flat rolled products, on number of contracts, exceed the domestic prices. The last time this tendency occurred in 2004, where afterwards during one and a half, two years time the domestic prices for flat rolled products were significantly higher, approximately by $50-100 per ton, than the export prices. Consequently, Russian producers of flat rolled products were directing majority of their output to the local market of Russia, causing decline in export deliveries. Now, it is possible to speak about sort of equalization of the domestic and export prices, and therefore to forecast an increase in export deliveries.