Over the past week, demand in the local Turkish hot rolled coil (HRC) market has remained weak. Despite the downtrend of global flat steel prices, Turkish mills had first waited for the long holiday in China to end before revising their domestic HRC prices. After the holiday, they revised their domestic prices downwards in line with the ongoing declines of prices of flat steel and iron ore in the global market. As a result, domestic producers’ prices in the local Turkish HRC market have decreased by $40/mt week on week to $580-600/mt ex-works, while buyers’ firm bids are at $550-570/mt ex-works. Currently, Turkish buyers prefer to postpone their bookings, holding the view that prices have not hit bottom yet, while Turkish mills are unwilling to decrease their prices further as their order books are nearly full and also given the support coming from strong demand for Turkish HRC in Europe.
Meanwhile, traders’ HRC prices in the Turkish spot market have also moved on a downward trend in the given period, with prices decreasing by $10/mt for HRC and by $20/mt for HR P&O week on week due to the weakness of demand, tightness of liquidity and the reductions in producers’ prices.
The domestic sales prices of traders for local and imported hot rolled flat steel products in the Eregli and Gebze regions of Turkey are as follows:
|
Product |
Price ($/mt) |
|
|
Eregli |
Gebze |
|
|
2-12 mm HRC |
570-590 |
580-600 |
|
1.5 mm HRS |
610-630 |
625-655 |
|
2-12 mm HRC (for large tonnages) |
|
560-580 |
|
3-12 mm HR P&O |
630-640 |
650-680 |