Turkey’s hot rolled coil (HRC) market is booming, supported by limited availability and by stronger raw material prices. As a result, most CIS-based HRC exporters prefer to focus on Turkey in their sales for September production. The ex-CIS HRC prices have settled at $465-480/mt FOB Black Sea, up by $20-30/mt since early August.
According to sources, Russia’s NLMK has recently sold around 15,000 mt of HRC to Turkey at slightly below $500/mt CFR, having achieved a significant price rise as compared to the pre-holiday deals at around $455/mt CFR. “Allocation was limited and the remaining volumes were sold high,” a trader said.
MMK, another Russia-based HRC producer, is targeting sales to Turkey at around $490/mt CFR for September production, up by $5-10/mt over the past week. The producer is still in the process of determining its allocation, which will certainly be very limited. MMK plans to focus on Turkey and is expected to skip offering and selling to Asia in this round of sales.
Ukraine’s Metinvest has been actively trading slabs in the region, but is also targeting to sell HRC at high price levels. The latest small deals were reported at $490/mt CFR to Turkey, while some large volumes were traded last week at $475-485/mt CFR, SteelOrbis has learned. The supplier is in the market with small coils.
Severstal is the only CIS-based HRC exporter which is not targeting sales to the MENA region, partly due to the logistic issues. The producer has hit $470/mt FOB Baltic Sea in its latest sales. Overall, around 10,000-15,000 mt were traded since last week at $460-470/mt FOB, while the first offers in the current sales round were at $445/mt FOB. The mill is sold out for September production and has started to offer limited volumes for October.
As a result, the overall ex-CIS allocation for September production is again very much limited, with only Metivest having some volumes to sell and MMK considering giving a limited tonnage for export, including supplies to its Turkish asset.