In the current week, CIS-based suppliers’ billet export prices have been in the range of $500-520/mt FOB, $5/mt lower on the upper end than the price levels recorded last week. Demand for ex-CIS billet in the export markets has remained weak in this period, while CIS-based suppliers’ export deals have been for small tonnages.
On the other hand, despite the downward pressure on global scrap quotations, no significant fall in prices has been observed in billet prices over the past two weeks. Also, Chinese billet export quotations had declined below $500/mt FOB following the recent decreases but have rallied once again in the last couple of days to $510-530/mt FOB - levels which are considered unlikely to exert pressure on the international markets. As a result, the sharp declining trend followed by ex-CIS billet quotations since the middle of March has slowed down as of last week with CIS-based billet suppliers being unwilling to reduce their prices further.
It is observed that the current billet offers from the CIS region to Turkey and Egypt are at $520-535/mt CFR and $520-540/mt CFR, respectively. Meanwhile, market sources report that Turkish rolling mills have concluded a few ex-CIS billet deals at this price range due to the advantage provided by Turkey’s inward processing regime (under this scheme mills have to give a commitment to export the finished products they produce from imported billet) as they consider the current domestic billet prices in Turkey to be on the high side.