By the end of the current week, the hot-rolled coil (HRC) market in Turkey has softened further, marking the decline of workable price levels in all three segments due to insufficient demand.
In the domestic market, the official HRC prices for June-July deliveries are at $1,200-1,250/mt ex-works, while earlier this week most of the mills were standing at $1,250-1,280/mt ex-works and up to $1,300/mt ex-works in indicative offers. Most of the buyers believe $1,200/mt ex-works is the easily achievable level in the market from all of the mills and they suppose that for good-size orders one can get $1,180/mt ex-works and even slightly below. “Even these discounts are not enough - Turkish prices are much higher than in a lot of places in the world. Mills have time until around May 15 to understand if there are delays in shipments from China or not. If there are, Turkey may avoid big discounts. If there are not, we will be in big trouble as all flat products, including CRC, CRFH and coated, were booked in huge volumes and at very low prices,” a mill told SteelOrbis.
The average official export HRC prices from Turkey are at $1,230-1,250/mt FOB, but the workable level is much lower since foreign demand is very low. The EU, where buyers have restocked and where both import and local prices for HRC have sharply fallen over the past week, do not see ex-Turkey offers as acceptable. Some traders report $1,180-1,190/mt FOB can be achieved from Turkey for exports, but even these levels are not seen as very competitive ones. “Turkey may give €1,140-1,150/mt CFR Italy or Spain and that is even without the AD, and it is in line with or higher than ex-Asia offers to Europe. So, there is no chance,” a source told SteelOrbis.
In the import segment, according to sources, some ex-China Q195 HRC offers have been coming at $960-975/mt CFR, versus $990-995/mt CFR in offers made late last week. Still, some of the market players reported they still receive offers for the same quality at $1,000/mt CFR and above. Ex-India official offers for HRC are at $1,090-1,100/mt CFR, down $20-30/mt over the week, but the market is filled with rumours of $1,050/mt CFR. “I believe these are the traders trying to take short positions,” a source told SteelOrbis. Ex-Russia offers have been reported at $1,000-1,020/mt CFR from NLMK and MMK and down to $990-995/mt CFR from Severstal.
