Given declining hot rolled coil (HRC) prices and persistently poor domestic demand, Turkish flat steel spot traders have decided to decrease their offers slightly this week. However, despite the present bleak outlook and the downward trend of flat steel prices, Turkish flat spot traders, particularly smaller and medium-sized ones, are still trying to maintain higher prices, as opposed to larger traders who have reduced their offers somewhat over the past week.
“In the spot market this week, flat prices generally continue to remain solid despite HRC producers' lowered prices and sluggish demand. We will see how much we can resist the downward mood,” a medium-sized trader told SteelOrbis.
As a result, workable domestic hot rolled sheet prices have fallen week on week to roughly $630-640/mt ex-warehouse, down from $635-640/mt ex-warehouse.
Similar patterns have been observed in the cold rolled sheet market, where prices have fallen from $750-770/mt ex-warehouse week on week to $750-775/mt ex-warehouse.
Nevertheless, despite the current poor market conditions, a few traders are still trying to offer hot and cold rolled sheets at $645-650/mt ex-warehouse and $780/mt ex-warehouse, respectively.
Meanwhile, producers’ HRC prices in Turkey are now at about $600-620/mt ex-works, while their cold rolled coil prices are at $710-740/mt ex-works.
