During the past week, demand for import flat steel in Turkey has remained weak, while buyers have postponed their purchases ahead of the snap election to be held on June 24 and the end-of-Ramadan holiday due to start on June 15. As the summer period approaches, demand is expected to indicate its traditional slowdown. Additionally, Turkish buyers believe that the safeguard duty investigation in the EU will likely to result in quotas or duties, and so they do not anticipate an increase in Turkey’s HRC exports or any supply shortage in the Turkish domestic HRC market. Accordingly, they do not plan to step up their HRC purchases in the short term, whether from domestic or foreign sources.
Over the past week, ex-CIS hot rolled coil (HRC) and cold rolled coil (CRC) prices to Turkey have remained stable at $560-580/mt CFR and $610-640/mt CFR respectively.