It seems that it will take some time for the anticipation of a recovery in the Turkish domestic flat steel market by September to materialize. For now, although domestic demand has remained below expectations, local prices continue to follow a sideways trend. In the meantime, due to poor product mix availability in the market, end-users are facing difficulties in obtaining supplies of certain product types. Turkish flat steel producers, on the other hand, have maintained their domestic prices at previous levels in line with flat trend seen in raw material prices and slow demand.
Approaching the weekend, it is reported that Turkish integrated steelmaker Erdemir has nearly filled its order books for October output and the producer has started to accept offers for its November production. In its latest orders for October production, Erdemir's hot rolled coil (HRC) offers to the domestic market were at $760/mt ex-works, while its 1-1.5 mm cold rolled coil (CRC) offers were standing at $915-925/mt ex-works. In the meantime, Colakoglu Metalurji and MMK Metalurji, on the other hand, are offering HRC at about $760/mt and $750/mt respectively, both ex-works. Another Turkish producer Tosyali is currently offering HRC of its own production to the local market at $740/mt ex-works, while its offers for imported and local origin HRC stand at $750/mt.
In this week's Turkish domestic flat steel market, HRC spot prices have remained at $755-775/mt, and prices of CRC of 1-1.5 mm thickness have been at $900-930/mt, both ex-warehouse. However, due to weak demand many transactions have been concluded at the lower-end of these price ranges, while some offers $10-20/mt lower than the mainstream price ranges are also available in the market.
On the import side, in previous weeks foreign flat steel producers, mostly from the CIS, were expected to increase their offers slightly for the Turkish market. Accordingly, Russian steelmaker Severstal has pushed up its HRC offers to the Turkish market by $5/mt to $765/mt CFR FO Diliskelesi port. Also due to low demand in the Turkish market, this price range has been found to be on the high side, and it is thought that some transactions may be possible only with the help of discounts.