This week, Turkish flat steel retailers raised their prices in response to the surges in the pricing of hot rolled coil (HRC) and cold rolled coil (CRC) suppliers following several weeks of relative stable movement. The main reason for the Turkish mills to increase their offer prices are costlier scrap and reduced competition in the import flats segment. However, the retailers point to the insufficient domestic demand in the spot market and worry whether the producers’ hikes will be reflected in their own deal prices.
“If the scrap price rises a little more and expectations come true and HRC prices climb again, it appears that we will see another rise in Turkey, but demand remains modest despite all of these good gains and expectations,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
The domestic retail hot rolled sheet (HRS) prices have increased by $40/mt over the past week to $820-840/mt ex-warehouse. In the meantime, some smaller traders are seeking to sell at around $850-860/mt ex-warehouse, but the market generally does not consider such levels workable.
In cold rolled sheet (CRS) market, a similar trend can be observed. The majority of traders have raised their prices by $30-40/mt over the past week to $910-940/mt ex-warehouse.
It is worth mentioning that in the producers’ segment HRC is on offer at $780-790/mt ex-works base, up $30-40/mt from the second half of January. The official offers for CRC from local re-rollers now reach $900-920/mt ex-works base, versus $850-870/mt ex-works previously fixed in sales to service centers. However, some sources report that $880-890/mt ex-works levels may still be workable for orders for decent tonnages.