Bearish moods have continued to prevail in the import billet market in Turkey early this week. Some sellers have voiced lower offers, though demand has remained slack and buyers’ price ideas are set to decline further.
The SteelOrbis reference price for imported billet in Turley has declined to $620-640/mt CFR, down by $5/mt on the lower end and $15/mt on the higher end of the range since late last week.
Offers for billet of Asian origin, Chinese and Indonesian in particular, have been heard at $635-640/mt CFR to Turkey. Just a week ago, Malaysian offers were at $660/mt CFR and above, and, though no new firm offers have been reported for ex-Malaysia billet this week, market sources are sure that some traders can offer at $640-645/mt CFR for this duty-free origin too. “All the mills [in ASEAN] understood that they could not ask for $620-630/mt FOB and now they are asking for $600/mt FOB,” a trader said. A few lots of ex-Indonesia billet have been taken by traders recently at $600-605/mt FOB, while some could be for the Turkish market, and the freight for a large volume is $30-40/mt.
In general, after a few weeks of active offering, the interest of exporters in sales to Turkey has declined significantly. Offers for small volumes of ex-Russia or ex-Donbass billet have been at $615-625/mt CFR, with the latest bids at $610/mt CFR only.
“$630/mt is the level of billet production costs for Turkish mills now, and so customers are not interested in imports at current prices,” a source from Turkey said.
Some billet exporters, who were previously targeting Turkey, have been evaluating other markets. For instance, ex-Algeria and ex-Indonesia billets have been offered to Europe at $645-650/mt CFR or so.
In the local billet market in Turkey, prices have remained stable at $680-700/mt ex-works and the market there is still silent.