During the past week, domestic billet prices in Turkey have declined by $5/mt on the lower end and by $10/mt on the upper end and are currently at $515-525/mt ex-works.
Turkish steel mills’ production costs have moved down in line with the decreases seen in import scrap prices in Turkey, and so they have reduced their domestic billet prices, also due to the influence of the declines recorded in ex-CIS billet quotations. It is observed that Turkish buyers are in no rush to conclude new billet deals, while they are trying to gain a clearer picture of the future trend of the billet market.
CIS-based billet suppliers have also reduced their offer prices to Turkey, decreasing them by an average of $20/mt week on week to $515-530/mt CFR. Additionally, they are expected to reduce their billet export quotations further in the coming days due to the weakness of demand for ex-CIS billet as well as due to the rapid declines seen in Chinese billet export prices.
Having indicated a sharp decline during the past week, Chinese billet export prices moved up slightly today, September 27, to $492-494/mt CFR, though this price range is still $25/mt lower than Chinese exporters’ billet offers recorded last week. The downward movement of Chinese billet suppliers’ offers has been caused by the weaker demand in their domestic market and by the declines seen in iron ore prices. Although billet prices from the CIS region and in the local Turkish billet market are higher, Turkish buyers are showing no interest in Chinese billet given that Chinese suppliers fail to provide any freight or delivery time advantage for buyers.