Turkish coated steel prices indicate further sharp rise, sales limited

Most re-rolling companies in Turkey still limit their coated steel sales to 2,000-3,000 mt per day, not wanting to miss out on further increases in flats prices. According to sources, the suppliers open their sales for only a few hours a day, taking into account that prices keep rising rapidly: most coated product prices are up $30-40/mt compared to last week. HDG offers are now standing at $850-870/mt ex-works and PPGI is at $910-940/mt ex-works, both base prices and for February-March production. "We cannot leave our sales open because prices change so quickly and producers do not want to miss selling at higher levels. Because the situation in the HRC market is also the same, we buy our feedstock at higher prices everyday," a producer told SteelOrbis. However, coated steel buyers are naturally unhappy about the situation, most of them are facing problems in terms of meeting their needs. "Until this month, we have only had to follow up the currencies, now we have to follow prices and stock levels in the market also. It is really exhausting and most of the time we cannot meet our needs. We are hoping prices will settle down soon and that sales will be as open as before. The current situation is really stressful for buyers and also sellers," a trader told SteelOrbis.

However, on the export side exporters have lost their price advantage to local producers because of the latest price increases and demand has declined. "Prices have increased a lot and the local market is more attractive at the moment. We believe European prices will also increase further due to the higher scrap prices and soon we will start to export again at the new price levels," an exporter told SteelOrbis.