Turkish hot rolled coil (HRC) mills are still in a situation where they cannot give in to buyers’ pressure to provide considerable discounts, being squeezed by high production costs. For now, the HRC producers prefer to keep their offers high, despite slow sales. In the meantime, import offers from Asian suppliers, who are not facing similar issues with energy costs, remain quite competitive.
In the import segment, ex-China offers for Q195 HRC have decreased to $590/mt CFR, versus $600-610/mt CFR a week earlier. In the meantime, India is said to be at $610-615/mt CFR at the lowest offer from one producer, while another offer was as around $650/mt CFR last week. A sale from Japan has been rumoured in the market at $610-615/mt CFR, but some believe it may be an old one as a similar transaction had been reported around two weeks ago.
As for Russia, some buyers have reported indicative offers from a non-sanctioned supplier at $640/mt CFR, which is down $10/mt over the past week. Another seller, according to market sources, has been receiving buyers’ price ideas at $570-580/mt CFR but is not yet willing to accept these prices, having higher workable prices in Asia.
In the meantime, domestic HRC prices in Turkey are still at rather high levels, despite slow sales. Buyers and mills report prices of $700-710/mt ex-works in official offers and down to $680/mt ex-works in possible deals for larger tonnages. “The situation is that Turkey cannot go lower than a certain level due to higher costs and therefore has trouble selling to the local and export markets. And at the same time Asia is very competitive, which is taken by our buyers as an opportunity,” a Turkish producer said. As regards exports, the official HRC offers from Turkey are still at around $680-700/mt CFR. However, lower levels may be possible from mills who produce their HRC from cheap ex-Russia slabs.
