Turkish domestic flat rolled market trends sideways

No sign of revival has been observed this week in the Turkish domestic flat rolled markets over last week. No improvement in demand has been recorded either. End-user industries are in summer standstill, holidays and Ramadan are limiting purchasing activity, and sideway movement of the flat rolled steel market is almost taken for granted.
 
Traders who had slowed down their purchasing activity in previous weeks are reviewing their inventory levels and making inquiries from producers for any possible purchases. According to some traders, increases in the producer or import offers are signalling the uptrend approaching with September, while other traders claim that even current levels are not workable and that prices may soften somewhat.
 
In the spot market where activity is low, no concrete changes have been recorded this week. The price levels of hot rolled coils have remained at the previous levels of $760-780/mt ex warehouse. For 1-1.5 mm cold rolled coils, offers have been given at $900-920/mt ex-warehouse. For thinner gauges, cold rolled coils have been offered at $940-970/mt ex-warehouse. As mentioned, increases in producer prices are currently not reflected in the spot market. The strong stance of the US dollar against the Turkish lira is making it difficult in particular for traders who are selling on Turkish lira basis. Buyers are expecting that the US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate will at least gain some stability.
 
Turkish producer Erdemir is still collecting orders for October. October production hot rolled coil offers by Erdemir are at $760/mt ex-works, while 1-1.5 mm cold rolled coils are offered at $920-930/mt ex-works. Other domestic producers Colakoglu and MMK-Atakas are offering hot rolled coils at $750/mt ex-works.
 
On the import side, following Severstal's announcement last week of offers for the Turkish market, MMK also announced their hot rolled coil offers to Turkey at $750/mt CFR while its cold rolled coil offers are announced at $850/mt CFR. Turkish buyers are postponing their offers until the end of August or September, and import offers are not much in demand for the time being.