Hot-rolled coil (HRC) producers in Turkey have attempted to increase their prices, citing the uptrend in the scrap segment and certain maintenance works rescheduled for August. However, although some sales have been triggered, the overall demand situation is not supportive. Taking also into account the approaching holiday period in Turkey, most market players evaluate the current increased offers as indicative and not yet workable. Russian HRC suppliers have raised their prices to Turkey also, but their success in sales will clearly depend on how high Turkish mills will be able to sell. In the meantime, Turkey’s coated and cold-rolled coil (CRC) segments remain slow and general price levels have even decreased over the past week, although some sellers have started voicing higher offers due to mills’ higher HRC prices.
Currently, Turkey’s HRC domestic pricing lacks solidity and is uneven. Mills have been voicing their offers depending on their market evaluations and some of them attempted to increase offers to $700-720/mt ex-works for August production, versus around $670-700/mt ex-works at the end of last week. However, for now it is widely believed that in some cases mills might still consent to accept bids of $670-680/mt ex-works and maybe even lower than that. Some mills announced repair works scheduled for August, saying that allocation for this month is limited, thus trying to trigger some demand.
In the import segment, offers from Russia continue to dominate the market and the suppliers have attempted to take advantage of a certain optimism in the Turkish market. Following the rise in the official HRC prices of Turkish mills, two Russian producers started voicing $650-660/mt FOB with the estimated freight of around $45-50/mt from Black Sea ports. The third Russia-based producer is said to be offering $690/mt CFR. “I do not believe they will achieve these prices, for that they will need Turkey selling locally at $750/mt ex-works and I don’t see it happening,” a source told SteelOrbis.
In the meantime, the situation in the coated and CRC market in Turkey lacks optimism, although some demand has been seen recently. “After the scrap news, the market thought that the bottom had been reached and now prices will rise and buyers ordered some material,” a source said. In addition, after the Feast of Sacrifice holiday prices are expected to be seen at higher levels than today. However, the sales volume is still not good enough for producers and in some cases the prices decreased over the past week. Particularly, local CRC prices moved down by $30-50/mt over the week to $800-850/mt ex-works. HDG 0.5 mm Z100 base prices are at around $820-840/mt ex-works, down $30-40/mt, while 2 mm material is available at $780-800/mt ex-works. PPGI prices are relatively stable at $970-990/mt ex-works. “There is still a lot of stock in the market and the HRC price trend is not yet solid enough to support coated and cold rolled. Once people start buying [HRC] at $700/mt, then we might see a better situation on the re-rollers’ side,” a trader told SteelOrbis.
