Turkey’s Mescier Demir Celik, one of the largest re-rolling companies for merchant bar production in the country, has recently had its first heat at its brand-new EAF with a 1 million mt per year crude steel capacity. According to sources, the company will obtain the technical results and will proceed with production, though it may take a while to shift to commercial production. “All is completed and actually now it is like fine tuning. They need to see which scrap is good or not and adjust melting and casting,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
Mescier entering the market as a billet producer is expected to be somewhat of a game changer in the region. The company is expected to source steel scrap locally and also to be an active importer, but only in the short sea segment since there is a draft limitation at the local port. According to sources, the producer has sufficient scrap stocks to continue with the trial period. As the rolling capacity of Mescier is 700,000 mt of merchant bars per year, potentially the company may become a seller of its own steel billets.