As hot rolled coil (HRC) and scrap prices have continued to fall this week, Turkish flat steel spot traders have cut prices further over the past week. Furthermore, most market participants believe that prices may continue to move down amid persistently low demand and financial difficulties, with no signs of improvement anticipated in the market for several weeks.
“We have had no alternative but to reduce offers since prices are falling in the flats market and demand is quite weak. We sold half of our average tonnage this week and even less on some days,” a relatively large trader told SteelOrbis
Over the past week, the prevailing workable domestic prices for hot rolled sheets have decreased by $10-15/mt from last week to $620-625/mt ex-warehouse. According to reports, while bigger traders have offers at around $625/mt ex-warehouse, smaller and medium-sized traders have been offering at $620/mt ex-warehouse.
Similarly, the general range of domestic cold rolled sheet prices has weakened to around $740-760/mt ex-warehouse, down from $750-770/mt ex-warehouse in the previous week. Nonetheless, certain traders are offering cold rolled sheets at $725-730/mt ex-warehouse in order to attract greater interest from customers.
Meanwhile, local producers’ HRC prices in Turkey are now at about $595-610/mt ex-works, while their cold rolled coil prices are at $720-740/mt ex-works.