The first SteelOrbis Market Talks Meeting in the current year was held in the western Turkish city of Izmir on March 8. Speaking at the meeting, Burcak Odabası Alpman, raw material analyst at SteelOrbis, stated that in 2016 coal prices increased rapidly due to the Chinese government’s measures to reduce coal production at Chinese mines by 54 days, down from 330 to 276 days a year and amid moves to force miners to comply with production limits, resulting in reduced supply in the coal market. Accordingly, in the coming period, coal prices are not expected to decrease.
In addition, Mete Bulent Adalı, sales and marketing manager of Turkish steelmaker Ege Celik, commented on the antidumping (AD) duty and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of the US on Turkey’s rebar imports stating that despite the preliminary duties Turkey will again start to sell rebar to the US market.
Meanwhile, Serdar Kilimci, owner of Turkey-based Steel Expert, remarked that, contrary to the situation in the Turkish long steel industry, the Turkish flat steel industry cannot export goods to every country because the existing plants of Turkish flat steel producers are not equipped to produce every flat steel grade.