Over the past week, demand in the local Turkish cold rolled coil (CRC) market has remained slack. With the beginning of the new year, buyers have started to make inquiries and have exerted downward pressure on prices. As a result of discounts during actual transactions, Turkish CRC producers have decreased their prices by $10/mt $560-580/mt ex-works, excluding 18 percent VAT. On the other hand, positive developments include the news that US and Chinese officials are to hold talks to resolve problems between the countries, while there are expectations that the US may reduce the 50 percent duty imposed on Turkish exporters to 25 percent again. Also, the European Commission’s new import quotas are not expected to harm Turkish CRC exports and this supports positive sentiment among Turkish market players. Meanwhile, there is a strong belief that flat steel prices in the global market have reached the bottom, due to the slowdown of the downward movement of global flat steel prices and also since Chinese flat steel offers to the export markets have switched to a sideways trend. As a result, CRC offers to Turkey are not expected to decrease and, accordingly, the pressure on domestic CRC prices is likely to come to an end.
In the spot market, prices of domestic CRC sold by local traders have also declined by $10/mt week on week and are at the following levels:
|
Product |
Price ($/mt) |
|
|
Eregli |
Gebze |
|
|
0.6 mm CRC |
600-610 |
610-630 |
|
0.7-2 mm CRC |
570-590 |
580-600 |
The offers are on ex-warehouse basis, for January delivery, and exclude 18 percent VAT.