Turkish domestic rebar market prices have in the past week kept their levels of the previous week, remaining in the range of TRY 680-800/mt ex-works excluding VAT ($412-485/mt). The price gap among the regions in Turkey has also remained unchanged. On the demand side, there has been complete silence. With the expected momentum failing to appear in Turkey ahead of the local elections, no recovery has been observed on end-user side.
On the export side, merchant bar offers of Turkish producers have continued to soften. While in the previous week the price level of $420/mt FOB was being offered only by one or two companies, other companies have now also started to give offers at the same level. Merchant bar price levels for the export markets have generally been in the range of $420-440/mt FOB over the past week. Meanwhile, offers for IPEs have been in the range of $480-500/mt FOB. Also, rebar producers have upped their offers, due to the halt to the long-standing softening trend on the raw material and billet side and the appearance even of some slight increases. For the same reason, a similar uptrend is also likely to be seen in merchant bar prices.
Looking at the situation in Europe, some producers in Italy have increased their extras, with merchant bar prices consequently rising to the range of €400-420/mt ($543-570/mt) ex-works. On the other hand, a decrease has been observed in Spain, and Spanish offers to Portugal have declined to €375-380/mt ($509-516/mt) delivered to customer.
In general, while end-user demand for merchant bars in Europe is currently at low levels due to the continuation of the downtrend in the rebar markets under the influence of the ongoing global recession, merchant bar prices in the region have been showing variation from country to country.
€1= US$1.35752