Suppliers of steel plate in the Turkish market have followed the general rapid upward price trend seen in semi-finished, finished steel and raw materials globally. Another important issue is the absence of supply from Ukraine due to the war and, moreover, this source is expected to remain out of the market for a while. The supply situation in the EU is also complicated, given producers’ dependency on imported slabs, the prices for which have been constantly rising. “Global capacity is limited, Metinvest is out, Russia is out, Romania is out., and so prices are increasing,” a market source told SteelOrbis.
As a result, offers for European origin plate are scarce nowadays. Particularly, Romania-based Galati has not been giving a price for around two weeks now. However, according to some market sources, the supplier is asking additional premiums from its buyers for unloaded orders. Bulgaria’s Stomana was offering $1,650/mt CFR base last week, but this week the supplier decided to increase the price to $1,900/mt CFR base for May shipments. Another European mill, Macedonia’s Makstil, was offering €1,560/mt CFR or $1,815/mt CFR for shipbuilding grade; no fresh offers have been heard from the supplier this week yet. Plate offers from South Korea are now at $1,500/mt CFR for June-July shipments, but the seller is expected to increase the price shortly.
In the local market in Turkey, ex-Erdemir plate offers have been reported at $1,450-1,475/mt ex-works depending on the steel grade, while last week the levels of $1,400-1,420/mt ex-works were possible. Ex-warehouse offers have increased by at least $40-50/mt over the past week to $1,580-1,600/mt for base grade and to around $1,650-1,660/mt for S355JR grade.
