Prices in the Turkish flat steel market have not changed in the last two weeks. It can be said that demand in most flat steel consuming sectors is currently very weak. Naturally, demand has decreased in most sectors during this holiday period, just as in previous years. However, some positive factors are helping to keep the flat steel sector alive. One such factor is the activity registered in the white goods, electronic and cooling sectors. There are also relatively positive levels of activity in some other sectors such as roof and façade construction or radiator panels. However, the silence is deafening in the other sectors. As regards stocks in the local Turkish market, low levels are observed and it is hard to source a number of flat steel materials. Besides all these developments, the absence of a downtrend in international flat steel prices is also preventing Turkish flat steel prices from declining. It seems no change will be seen in the local Turkish flats market in the next two or three weeks if there is not any significant alteration in foreign prices. These days, some activity heard in flat steels in the Far East, in China in particular, mostly attributable to the rise in end-user consumption (e.g. of white goods). Under the influence of this activity, sheet prices in China have increased by $50/mt on average in the Chinese domestic market within a single week. If this uptrend continues, prices may also increase in countries like Turkey, which is affected directly by developments in the foreign markets.
In the local Turkish market, traders are selling Erdemir production 2 mm HRC at $580-590/mt and are selling the producer's CRC at $710-720/mt. It may be said that the wide price gap between hot and cold rolled materials is principally due to the situation in white goods. Manufacturers of white goods have turned their direction to the steel service centers as they have experienced difficulties in getting materials from producers due to their lack of materials; thus, cold rolled prices have been increasing their margin over hot rolled prices. This situation may change when the producers' materials enter the market. For now all depends on the supply-and-demand relationship - Will supply exceed demand? Will demand exceed supply or will equilibrium be reached? Considering the number of blast furnaces that may be restarted and also the general developments in the global steel markets, it may be said that the supply-and-demand equilibrium is not likely to change, but perhaps demand may initially tend to exceed supply. Thus, prices could register an uptrend on the back of demand after the holidays. However, as long as production capacity utilization rates are increased, a contrary tendency may be seen. For this reason, it will be essential to monitor the balance between supply and demand in the coming period in order to understand the direction of the flat steel markets in general.