Turkey’s hot rolled coil (HRC) export offers have remained under pressure from low demand in key consuming destinations and competition with alternative suppliers. As a result, some mills have decreased their prices by around $10-15/mt over the past week, which has led to limited sales.
In particular, up to 15,000 mt of HRC for October shipment was reportedly sold from Turkey to Egypt at $480/mt CFR, coming to around $470/mt FOB Iskenderun. Another 8,000-10,000 mt lot was closed to Greece at around $475-480/mt FOB, sources say. In addition, a sale of around 15,000-20,000 mt of Turkish HRC to Brazil at $510/mt CFR ($470/mt FOB) has been mentioned in the market. Last week, Turkey’s HRC official export offers were at $485-490/mt FOB for October shipments. This week, some mills have started offering for November loadings.
In the Turkish domestic market, on the contrary, mills continue to refrain from sizeable discounts. Locally, HRC for October deliveries is available at $485-490/mt ex-works base, down by only $5/mt from the lower end of the range since last week. “Lower levels should be available pretty soon as hardly anyone would agree to deal at these prices,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
In the import segment, the market is waiting for October production offers from the CIS. In particular, Russia is foreseen to start negotiations within $480-490/mt CFR depending on the supplier.
