CIS-based flats producers are partly sold out for March rolling, while some still have certain volumes to trade. However, in the slab segment, business has been challenging, in the Black Sea region specifically.
Severstal has closed its sales for March production HRC to different destinations in the EU, having traded around 25,000 mt within $745-765/mt FOB Baltic Sea. The supplier’s total export volume for March is estimated at around 160,000-170,000 mt. NLMK is also out of the market having sold around 20,000-25,000 mt of March production HRC at $730/mt FOB to the Turkish market.
In the meantime, Russia’s MMK is offering $715/mt FOB or $730/mt CFR to Turkey for March production, with no sales reported so far. In the meantime, sources report the supplier’s offers to North Africa at $690-700/mt CFR, with the estimated freight at around $25/mt for 10,000 mt lots. It is also worth mentioning there are a lot of discussions regarding MMK’s sales to Latin America and Vietnam, for around 30,000 mt each. Rumor says that the first one was closed at $650/mt FOB, while the second one was done at the same price but on CFR basis. The information has not been confirmed by MMK by the time of publication. However, a lot of market sources report that the producer, which usually has around 200,000 mt per month to export, is more or less relaxed nowadays as regards concluding sales.
Ukraine’s Metinvest, according to sources, has been keeping quiet lately, preferring to negotiate with each buyer individually. Buyers report offers at $720/mt CFR Turkey for small coils and $730/mt CFR for the big coils. The freight is estimated at $15/mt on the average.
In the slab segment, CIS-based sellers from the Black Sea region have some troubles in sales to Turkey specifically, where the unclear HRC pricing has been making slab business rather challenging. Some mills from Russia have been targeting to sell at $650/mt FOB to Turkey, whıle some lower levels may be possible for alternative destinations, those in Latin America specifically. However, according to sources, Russia’s MMK, which is a rare exporter of slabs, has been offering $620/mt CFR to Turkey with no takers. “The price is good but the size is 250 mm, which is not suitable for us,” a buyer told SteelOrbis. Other sources report there are no firm bids even for slabs from Turkish mills these days.