The general HRC market sentiments in Turkey have remained rather dull with buyers putting pressure on local prices in addition to these being pulled down by somewhat aggressive export trades. However, Turkish customers have restocked quite heavily with import material from Asia since they managed to achieve acceptable discounts from the suppliers of several origins.
Ex-China HRC offers have settled at $535-540/mt CFR for now, for end-of-August shipments, relatively stable over the past week. The latest deals were closed at $530/mt CFR for 50,000 mt and $540/mt CFR (including deferred payment extra) for 45,000-50,000 mt, SteelOrbis has reported.
In the past week, according to sources, several Turkish buyers have booked a total of around 100,000 mt of HRC from Vietnam for August-September shipment. The price level was at $526-530/mt CFR, which is lower than China’s prices for second-tier material. Some sources, however, have been reporting deal prices at down to $520/mt CFR, which were not confirmed by some of the alleged buyers and denied by domestic sellers.
The latest offers from Malaysia stood at $595/mt CFR with the workable level fixed at around $10/mt lower for a full cargo. An Egyptian mill is choosing not to offer HRC to Turkey at the moment, considering the low local prices in the targeted country, while Europe’s and Egypt’s own domestic buyers are able to pay higher levels.
Domestic HRC prices in Turkey are now at $585-605/mt ex-works officially and some report $580/mt ex-works should be workable already. HRC export offers from Turkish mills are at $580-595/mt FOB in official offers, but at $570-580/mt FOB in tradable levels. In fact, Egypt has continued receiving $600/mt CFR from Turkey, but it seems one of the buyers has preferred to restock from China at around $545/mt CFR. In Europe, sources have reported a decent volume sold at $570/mt FOB to the southern region, down $10/mt from two weeks ago.
