The price idea in Turkey for October-November production hot rolled coil (HRC) from Ukraine is voiced at $415-420/mt CFR, down by around $10-15/mt over the past two weeks. Some buyers, however, report $410/mt CFR is also possible to get. Russia’s MMK has set its November offers for big coils at $425-430/mt CFR, with some lots of around 5,000 mt booked at the lower end of the range last week. Russian steelmaker NLMK is taking its time to announce its offers for the new month of production; buyers expect its new offers to be at around $430/mt CFR, while the majority of the previous sales were reported within $435-440/mt CFR.
In the Turkish domestic market, according to market sources, some medium-sized lots were booked at $430-435/mt ex-works last week, while most mills’ prices also stand at the same levels nowadays. In the export segment, prices are at $425-430/mt FOB, in line with last week. However, according to the sources, a deal for 30,000 mt was closed to Italy at €395/mt CFR, calculated to around $410-412/mt FOB Izmir. Currently, Turkey is offering for end-of-November production mainly, with some offers already voiced for December. According to the sources, integrated mills will start maintenance at the end of the month, which will result in some considerable loss of HRC production.
Some cautious optimism has started to form in the Turkish HRC market with most players hopeful that the downturn in prices is coming to an end. “India finally seems to be slowing down as there is no aggressive pricing from them for the past couple of weeks,” a trader told SteelOrbis. In addition, some support is coming from the relative stabilization seen in the import scrap segment.
