For some time now, buyers in the Turkish flat steel market have found local producers’ prices to be on the high side and since last week they have been concluding bookings for import flat steel aimed at meeting their needs. This week, demand for import flat steel in Turkey has continued at slack levels, with buyers still concluding import deals only to meet their immediate needs. After a Ukrainian steel producer concluded several hot rolled coil (HRC) deals to Turkey for a total of 10,000 mt at $498-500/mt CFR early this week, towards the end of the week Turkish flat steel producers have decided to decrease their prices for the domestic market. However, Turkish buyers’ bookings of both domestic and import flat steel have slowed down significantly due to the rapid strengthening of the US dollar against the Turkish lira.
During the past two weeks, Turkish buyers booked 30,000 mt of HRC and 10,000 mt of cold rolled coil (CRC) from CIS-based suppliers. Meanwhile, ex-CIS flat steel offers to Turkey have remained stable week on week. Ukrainian and Russian HRC offers to Turkey are still at $500/mt CFR and $510-520/mt CFR, while Ukrainian and Russian CRC offers to the same destination are at $570-580/mt CFR and $570-590/mt CFR, respectively.