Turkish hot rolled coil (HRC) producers have provided discounts on their initial local offers in order to attract customers’ attention. As a result, a number of sizeable deals have been closed with re-rollers and pipe makers for December deliveries and some rebound in offers has been seen.
After weeks of keeping local HRC offers within $530-540/mt ex-works, Turkish mills stepped back by $5/mt on prices last week. However, buyers have managed to push for more sizeable discounts. According to sources, a large pipe producer booked 35,000 mt at $510-515/mt ex-works. One re-roller purchased 15,000 mt at $510/mt CFR from the Izmir region, which translates to $500/mt ex-works. Another coated steel producer has purchased 20,000 mt of HRC at $510/mt ex-works, sources say. Having closed the deals, the mills have increased their offers. Most of them are back to $520/mt ex-works and above, while one producer’s price is reportedly standing at $515-518/mt ex-works.
In the import segment, the number of offers is scarce as the CIS-based mills are getting ready to announce prices for December production. Russian mills are expected to be at $500-505/mt CFR, while ex-Ukraine HRC prices are foreseen at around $10/mt lower than that. It is worth mentioning that this week there were a lot of rumors regarding $470-475/mt CFR deals for HRC from Ukraine. However, the information has been disproved by the supplier and some buyers in Turkey reported that their bids to Metinvest at these levels have been not accepted. “This is fake. There is no need to drop $20/mt from the previous deal levels,” a pipe maker told SteelOrbis.