Foreign HRC sellers to Turkey remain under pressure of falling bids and generally negative market outlook for the coming weeks. While offer prices weaken, buyers continue refraining from active purchases on bearish sentiment.
Russia’s NLMK announced $460/mt CFR for the October production of HRC for the Turkish market, while the re-rollers' price idea generally is not higher than $440-445/mt CFR. Another flats supplier from Russia, MMK, is currently offering big coils at $450/mt CFR, the small ones – at $445/mt CFR, which is around $5-10/mt lower than the initial price idea. Buyers’ bids, however, are at least $20/mt below the offered level, therefore no transactions were reported. Turkish customers report there are no fresh official HRC offers from Ukraine, but the level is currently estimated at $445-450/mt CFR, SteelOrbis understands.
Offers from Asia are also present in the market and are quite competitive - $455-460/mt CFR from India and $455-465/mt CFR from Korea, both down by at least $5/mt since early September. However, no deals were reported for these origins as well. “Every buyer is waiting as the market doesn’t look good. Bids are coming in a very wide range, this means that everyone reads the situation differently, but definitely in a downward trend,” a re-roller explained.