The Turkish flat rolled market has had another quiet week, with the main talking point being whether activity in the flat rolled markets will manage to pick up in the final quarter of the year. The positive expectations for domestic demand in October have been disappointed, and prices have consequently become softer.
Prices have this week finally failed to maintain their resistance against the falling market tendency, even though the price drops have not been drastic. Sellers have now become more flexible with their offers, as they seek to turn opportunities into bookings. Various numbers are heard for various types of products and different regions for the moment. In particular, the flat rolled steel consuming industries consider that it is safer to delay any purchases and so they prefer to stand aside and watch the price movements very closely. The Turkish market, not being influenced either negatively or positively by import offers, has now started to focus on raw material prices. All in all, we continue to remain in a buyers' market for another while.
Erdemir is pronouncing a price level of $610/mt base ex-works in the domestic market for hot rolled coils, indicating a $10/mt decrease. For cold rolled coils, the mill has not changed its prices too much and so $750/mt ex-works base remains valid as an offer level. Another domestic producer Colakoglu Metalurji has counterbid domestic orders at $620/mt base ex-works, but in the meantime it is also reported that the producer has sold some ready stock material in the price range of $600-610/mt. However, it is reported that Colakoglu's inventory levels are not very high.
In the spot market, due to the weak state of domestic demand prices may come down sufficiently low in order to gain acceptance from buyers. That said, cold rolled coil prices are more resistant compared to hot rolled prices.
As for general price levels, 2 mm hot rolled coil prices stand at $630-640/mt ex-works and 1-2 mm cold rolled coil prices stand at $750-790/mt ex-works in the Turkish flat rolled market.