Domestic billet prices in Turkey are observed to have remained stable at $540-550/mt ex-works during the past week. Following the import scrap deals concluded in Turkey this week, the future trend of the local Turkish billet market has become clearer and so buyers are reported to have stepped up their price inquiries for billet.
Prices recorded in the import scrap deals concluded this week are seen to be lower than the offer prices given to Turkish buyers last week, though they are still considered to be at high levels.
Meanwhile, CIS-based billet suppliers’ offers to Turkey have also remained unchanged week on week at $530-535/mt CFR, while an ex-CIS billet deal in Turkey has been concluded at $535/mt CFR in the current week.
Additionally, Chinese billet prices to the international markets have mostly declined over the past week and are at $500-510/mt FOB today, January 10. Having received slack demand from their export markets for a long time now due to their high price levels, Chinese billet suppliers have not still reduced their export prices to attractive levels following the reduction of China's fifteen percent export duty on billet to ten percent, and so they are still only receiving weak demand from international buyers.