Turkish mills focus on own billet trade, imports down 58 percent in H1

In the first six months of this year, Turkey's billet import volume amounted to 805,475 mt, falling by 58 percent, while the value of these imports decreased by 61.9 percent to $402.11 million, both year on year. In June alone, Turkey's billet and bloom import volume increased by 19.9 percent month on month to 170,454 mt, up by 8.7 percent year on year, according to the final data provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK). The value of these imports totaled $81.93 million, up 14.03 percent month on month and down 10.7 percent year on year.

Over the six months Turkey imported 516,621 mt of billet and bloom from Russia, down 47.8 percent year on year, with Russia ranking as Turkey's leading billet and bloom import source, ahead of Ukraine which supplied 154,409 mt, down 68.56 percent, in the given period.

In terms of production costs in rebar production, this year import billet prices in Turkey are high according to the scrap prices. Therefore, Turkish steel producers, whose sales in domestic market and export market weakened, significantly decreased their billet imports. Having decreased their rebar production due to slack demand, Turkish mills accelerated their billet production on the other hand. Nowadays, in Turkey, the key billet buyers are the re-rollers who can export their finished steel, while the sales to the steel producers have become rare.

“Turkey needs to produce and sell its own billet as it cannot sustain rebar sales in previous volumes. So mills intensified local billet trade, in Iskenderun specifically, and undercut CIS supplies [to the country] significantly”, a trading source told SteelOrbis.

Turkey's top billet and bloom import sources in January-June are as follows: