Turkey has registered negative finished steel production results in the first 11 months of 2019, with the downturn mainly resulting from challenging longs sales locally and abroad. The country’s total finished steel output decreased by 14.5 percent year on year to 30.48 million mt in the period under review, while longs production alone dropped by 20.5 percent year on year to 18.28 million mt, the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD) reports. Total steel consumption in Turkey in the first 11 months decreased by 17.6 percent year on year to 23.9 million mt.
The January-November period was challenging for Turkish mills mainly as domestic demand weakened significantly due to economic issues and the overall construction slowdown. As a result, local longs consumption in Turkey decreased by 30.7 percent year on year to only 10.1 million mt. In the meantime, longs exports, though much more challenging than last year, inched down by only 0.6 percent year on year to 9.58 million mt, the TCUD data shows. “Mills have to focus on more destinations and on much lower order volumes than before,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
In the flats segment, the production situation was better as output decreased by 3.8 percent year on year to 12.2 million mt and consumption dropped by only 4.5 percent to 13.8 million mt. Flats exports in the first 11 months totaled 5.26 million mt, down 1.9 percent year on year.