The almost complete coming to a halt of domestic rebar sales activity this week in Turkey, coupled with negative expectations in the import scrap sector, has negatively impacted billet prices in the market, both local prices and prices from overseas. Overall billet offers in the Turkish market have fallen by $20-30/mt over the past week depending on the origin.
Turkey as a billet buyer has been showing little activity, mainly resulting from the significant weakening of domestic rebar demand. According to sources, a lot of re-rollers across the country have stopped or slowed down their operations for now, while some mills have followed or are expected to follow the same policies shortly. As a result, local billet offers in Turkey have dropped to $360-365/mt ex-works, with Kardemir having opened sales recently within the same range. “In order to sell billet in Turkey today, you have to find someone who is capable of selling rebar in this market, which is not easy,” a trading source told SteelOrbis. It is worth mentioning that some rebar sellers foresee some recovery in construction not earlier than in a month from now.
For the same reason, billet imports have been on hold in Turkey with rare offers ex-CIS reported at $360-370/mt CFR. “I think nothing higher than $350/mt CFR will make them [Turkish mills] pay attention,” another trader said. Some sources state the bids are at as low as $340/mt CFR nowadays.
Export offers for Turkish billets have been settled this week at $355-365/mt FOB, with only a few mills being in the market to sell. Offers to Saudi Arabia have been reported at $380-390/mt CFR for high-manganese billet. However, any orders will most probably be taken by the CIS-based sellers since they are currently at $340-345/mt FOB base.