Despite ongoing unfavorable market conditions during the week mainly because of sluggish end-user demand and construction projects, Romania's sole rebar producer has decided to offer slightly higher prices. However, while traders’ activity levels have remained mixed, most Romanian traders have chosen to put forward the same offers as last week. Accordingly, larger traders have continued restocking despite the bleak outlook, while smaller and medium-sized traders are still having trouble achieving their desired sales. In the meantime, longs imports to Romania have become active recently as some suppliers have provided discounts.
In the import market, this week some purchases have been made from Turkey to Romania. According to the details, Romania has bought 13,000 mt of rebar at $545/mt FOB from Turkey, estimated at around €535-540/mt CFR. “There is interest in Europe for Turkish material since their quota is far from being used up,” a trader told SteelOrbis. Moreover, ex-Turkey prices are currently the lowest in the market and are attractive versus domestic prices in Romania. The closest offers are from Egypt with its rebar and wire rod offers at €560-565/mt CFR for December shipments.
In the meantime, offers from Moldova have remained stable during the week at €600-610/mt CPT, while Bulgaria has decided to lower its offers by €10/mt week on week to €600-610/mt CPT.
Over the past week, the sole domestic mill’s rebar price has increased by €5/mt to €600-605/mt ex-works. On the other hand, Romanian rebar traders have managed to keep their pricing unchanged week after week at €580-600/mt ex-warehouse.
While some minor rises have been observed in wire rod prices this week, sources claim that some traders are attempting to take advantage of this rise, but demand has not improved. According to reports, current offers for wire rod are at around €570-590/mt ex-warehouse, from €570-580/mt ex-warehouse in the previous week.
