This week, the steel billet offers of CIS producers have continued to follow a positive trend, as they did last week. With full order books for their December production, the CIS producers can afford to keep their price levels strong.
This week, CIS producers' steel billet offers have increased by about $10/mt as compared to the previous week, reaching $550-560/mt FOB. Last week, their billet offers were at $540-545/mt FOB.
Meanwhile, despite the continuing strong prices of raw materials and semi-finished products, the lack of recovery of demand in the markets causes uncertainty as regards the long-term market outlook. In addition, traders are now starting to supply short position materials to the market, and this may have an adverse effect on the market trend.
Last week, CIS billet offers to Turkey via traders were standing in the price range of $560-565/mt CFR, while traders have increased their offers to $565-575/mt CFR this week. In Turkey, demand for steel billet has continued to be strong. In the local Turkish market, Kardemir has received demand for 26,000 mt in its billet offering at $574/mt ex-works. During the past week, steel billet prices in the Turkish domestic market have been standing at $570-580/mt.
Strong raw material prices and the upward trend seen in finished steel prices indicate that a strong trend is also likely to be seen in the steel billet markets in the coming weeks.