Following the weakening trend in the hot rolled coil (HRC) market and the decrease in scrap prices, the Turkish flat steel spot market has showed a downward trend this week. As a result, the majority of small and medium-sized traders have reduced sheet prices compared to last week, while larger traders have reduced offers somewhat and are trying to resist the downward trend. However, according to market players, demand is also weakening and so further price declines may be seen in the market.
“Even if we only dropped $5/mt today, there is an expectation that market prices will fall. The demand side is already poor, and the reductions in Chinese prices and in scrap prices are boosting the downward expectations even further,” a relatively large trader told SteelOrbis
Over the past week, the prevailing workable domestic prices for hot rolled sheets have decreased by $5-10/mt from last week to $640-660/mt ex-warehouse, while, in order to attract more interest from consumers, some smaller traders have been making aggressive offers at $620/mt ex-warehouse. According to reports, while bigger traders have offers at around $660/mt ex-warehouse, smaller and medium-sized traders have been offering at $640-650/mt ex-warehouse.
Similarly, the general range of domestic cold rolled sheet prices has weakened to around $750-790/mt ex-warehouse, down from $770-790/mt ex-warehouse the previous week.
Meanwhile, at the moment producers can achieve $615/mt ex-works for HRC and around $630/mt ex-works for cut sheets, while cold rolled coil prices are at around $750-780/mt ex-works.